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ShopRite center in Waretown sold to Red Bank private-equity firm for $14.2M

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ShopRite center in Waretown sold to Red Bank private-equity firm for .2M

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WARETOWN – The Waretown Town Center, a shopping center on Route 9 anchored by ShopRite, was sold to a private-equity company for $14.2 million, officials said Thursday.

First National Realty Partners, a private-equity company based in Red Bank, said the acquisition was a rare chance to own a multi-tenant retail center in an area with little competition.

“Grocery-anchored retail continues to be a preferred asset class due to a phenomenal operating environment with robust tenant demand coupled with limited new supply,” said Mike Hazinski, chief investment officer at First National Realty Partners.

The Waretown Town Center is 96% leased. In addition to ShopRite, tenants include restaurants Saladworks, Harvest Buffet and Joe’s Bagel and Grill; health care providers Hackensack Meridian Health and Shore Smiles Dental; OceanFirst Bank; and Great Clips.

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Real estate brokers said the sale is a sign that communities that once were considered off the beaten path are now getting investors’ attention. The population in southern Ocean County has spiked since COVID-19 began in 2020, but new commercial real estate development hasn’t kept up.

“These coastal communities have seen such an influx of people who are coming and staying permanently,” said Chris Munley, executive vice president of CBRE, which arranged the sale of Waretown Town Center. “Some are being outright removed as ‘coastal’ or ‘seasonal.’ They’re just being defined as year-round communities. That’s been a positive outcome of what we’ve seen over the (past two years).”

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First National Realty owns more than 60 properties in 26 states, the bulk of which are shopping centers with grocery stores.

It acquired Waretown Town Center from Chancellor Development Group based in Haddonfield. And company executives noted more than 73,000 people with an average household income of more than $132,000 live within a 15-minute drive of the project.

Munley and his CBRE colleague Colin Behr said existing retail centers in coastal New Jersey are in high demand. Tenants are looking for space to serve the growing population. But the region has seen little new retail development the past two decades in part because those projects are expensive and time consuming.

“Existing centers like (Waretown Town Center) are very, very attractive,” Munley said. “It’s looked at like a high-barrier-to-entry market and a high-barrier-to-entry product type. It’s very unlikely new competition will be built.”

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Michael L. Diamond is a business reporter for the Asbury Park Press who has been writing about the New Jersey economy and health care industry since 1999. He can be reached at mdiamond@gannettnj.com.

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