Cedar Shopping Centers Opens Two PA Supermarkets, Signs Another PA Supermarket Lease
Cedar Shopping Centers, Inc. (NYSE: CDR) has opened Giant Food Stores supermarkets at two ground-up development shopping centers and executed a lease for a new Giant-Eagle supermarket, the first of that Company's stores in Cedar's portfolio.
The Company executed a ground lease with Giant Eagle stores for an 83,600 square foot supermarket at the Company's Townfair Center property in Indiana, Pennsylvania. Townfair Center is presently anchored by a 95,000 square foot Lowe's Home Center. The Giant Eagle store will replace a former Shop -N- Save store of approximately 50,000 square feet, the lease for which was acquired by the Company with a termination payment by the tenant, facilitating development of the new Giant Eagle supermarket. Cedar expects to deliver the site to Giant Eagle in the first quarter of 2010. Upon completion of the new supermarket premises, the center will measure approximately 211,440 square feet. The lease is for a period of twenty years, with eight five-year renewal options.
The new 97,900 square foot Giant Food Stores supermarket at Cedar's Blue Mountain Commons development property on Linglestown Road in northeast Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, opened on October 28th. The store is part of a 125,000 square foot ground-up shopping center development on approximately 22 acres of a 34-acre parcel owned by the Company. Other tenants include a PNC Bank branch completed on a pad site, Sonic, on a pad to be delivered in the near future, Brothers Pizza, Supercuts and Subway. The property also includes a Giant fuel facility on a separate outparcel. The property is more than 90% leased.
The Giant lease is for a period of 20 years, with six renewal options of five years each. The Giant store replaces a 62,320 square foot Giant store at the Company's nearby Oakhurst Plaza property where the Company arranged a lease termination payment and where it expects soon to backfill the former Giant premises. The property is included in the previously-reported RioCan (80%) and Cedar (20%) joint venture arrangements for seven properties presently owned by Cedar.
On Nov. 4, the Company opened a new 76,415 square foot Giant supermarket at its Crossroads II joint venture shopping center development in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, at the intersection of Routes 611, 33 and Interstate 80. Cedar's partner in the joint venture is Tristate Ventures, L.P., an affiliate of Fameco Realty Corporation. The Giant Food Stores supermarket is the anchor of a ground-up shopping center development of approximately 133,775 square feet. Lease negotiations with other in-line tenants are pending. A pad site for construction of a Red Lobster restaurant of approximately 7,000 square feet has been delivered and the restaurant is expected to open in or before the second quarter of 2010. The property also includes a Giant fuel facility on an outparcel. The supermarket lease is for a period of 20 years, with eight five-year renewal options.
Nancy Mozzachio, Cedar's Vice President of Leasing, stated, "The delivery and opening of these three new supermarkets reflect the strength of our development properties in terms of attracting dominant grocers building important prototypes, while also attracting additional credit tenancies to those properties. We continue to enjoy strong demand for new supermarket openings and to experience substantially increased leasing velocity for the ancillary retail premises. We are also pleased to note that the weighted average rents for the two Giant supermarket premises where we built the stores, as well as the ground lease for the Giant Eagle supermarket, are above the Company's average rents."