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December 7-December 20, 2016 — COLORADO REAL ESTATE JOURNAL — Page 11
Retail
by John Rebchook
Arnie Meranski has had a rela-
tionship with the Iliff Crossing
Shopping Center in Aurora that
dates back to the early 1990s.
“I bought it three times and
sold it once,” said Meranski,
founder and head of Western
Centers.
Confusing?
Not really.
That is because in each trans-
action, the common denomina-
tor was Meranski himself.
“The Iliff Crossing Shopping
Center has
always been
one of my
highest per-
forming prop-
erties with
a phenom-
enal location,
great traffic,
stable tenants
and excellent
financial per-
formance,” Meranski said.
The center at the northwest
corner of Iliff Avenue and Buck-
ley Road is 100 percent leased
“for the first time in the past 30
years,” he added.
The center was anchored by
an Alberstons and a Walgreens
when it opened in the early
1980s, he said.
“I first purchased it from
Boettcher Properties, which had
different funds to own real estate
when it was around, in 1992,”
Meranski said.
His partners in the deal were
New York developer Jonathan
Rose and Bruce Heitler.
“We paid $3.1 million, I
believe,” Meranski said.
“Exactly a year later, to the
day, we sold it to a Korean inves-
tor for $4.1 million, so we made
$1 million. That was kind of
cool,” Meranski said.
The buyer asked Meranski’s
Western Centers to continue
to manage it, so he remained
involved in the center, even
though he no longer owned it.
Then, tragedy struck the new
owner.
He lost a child in a Jet Ski
accident and he moved back to
Korea.
“So I bought it back from him.
I think I paid him $6 million.”
Then, the original Walgreens
pulled out, soon followed by
Albertsons.
“That is how the center kind of
morphed into a discount-type of
center,” he said.
Tenants now include Advance
Auto Parts, Angelo’s CD’s &
More, Little Caesars, Wing Stop,
Baskin-Robbins and Metro PCS.
The most recent tenant, Light-
shade Labs, is one of a few select
retail marijuana stores permitted
by the city of Aurora.
The largest single tenant is
Unique Thrift, which has 41,209
square feet, according to CoStar.
“Unique Thrift is part of the
Saver family of stores,” Meran-
ski said.
The center has a total of 103,126
sf, according to CoStar.
When Meranski bought the
center from the Korean inves-
tor, he did it through ASM Pearl
LLC.
In a recent transaction, he sold
it again, this time for $6.58 mil-
lion.
However, Meranski himself
stayed in the deal.
In fact, Western Centers is one
of the new owners.
“When I purchased it from the
Korean gentleman, I owned 100
percent of it myself,” Meranski
said.
“The new partnership that
bought it includes about five
very loyal family and friends. I
still control 50 percent or 51 per-
cent,” he said.
“Really, we are recyclers,”
bringing in new partners, rather
than selling it outright to a third-
party ownership group.
He noted if he sold it outright,
he would have needed to deploy
the money elsewhere and given
today’s high prices and low
cap rates even for unanchored
centers, it is difficult to find an
investment than would be a bet-
ter investment.
The new ownership group is
investing in the neighborhood
of $1.5 million to $2 million in
upgrades to Iliff Crossing.
Improvements include a new
parking lot, a substantial façade
remodel and new signage.
“We put about $1 million into
the new parking lot,” Meranski
said.
“It is going to completely
change the look and feel of the
center,” he said.
Western Centers is headquar-
tered in Aurora and it owns a
number of centers in the city, he
said.
“We have always been kind of
an opportunistic and contrarian
type of buyer,” Meranski said.
“As you know, forever, Aurora
was considered a second-class
citizen by investors and lenders,
but we liked, and continue to
like, Aurora,” he said.
“We have seven or eight assets
in Aurora and we are one of the
largest retail owners in the city,”
he said.
Western Centers has sold a
number of centers, some of them
outside of the core Denver metro
area.
“We like to own a maximum
of about 20 shopping centers,
otherwise, you can’t achieve the
right balance between work and
Shown is the Iliff Crossing Center
Arnie Meranski