DJM and PGIM List Huntington Beach Shopping Center for Sale

DJM Capital and PGIM have listed an 853,000-square-foot shopping center approved for 300 homes in Huntington Beach. The outdoor mall could fetch $300 million.

The San Jose-based developer and the real estate arm of Prudential Financial, based in New Jersey, are marketing the Bella Terra retail center at 7777 Edinger Avenue, Bisnow reported, citing a report by Real Estate Alert. The asking price was not disclosed.

But the nearly fully leased shopping center could sell for as much as $300 million, or $352 per square foot, market experts say.

If Bella Terra sold for that price, it would become “one of the biggest single-asset trades of a U.S. retail property within the past four years,” Real Estate Alert said.

The shopping center at the 405 Freeway and Beach Boulevard is 96.8 percent leased. Whole Foods serves as its grocery anchor, while Costco has a ground lease for its big-box store.  The Cheesecake Factory, Kohl’s, REI and Ulta Beauty are also tenants. 

The property is billed as a retail center among the top 1 percent of shopping centers by foot traffic, according to Real Estate Alert. Some 92 percent of its stores are leased to national retailers, while the average tenant stays for 14.5 years. 

Eastdil Secured is marketing the mall on behalf of DJM Capital and PGIM.

DJM bought the shopping center in 2005 for an undisclosed price. 

The open-air mall, once known as the Huntington Beach Mall, was built in 1966. It was renamed Bella Terra and redeveloped, with DJM replacing an underused amphitheater with new shops and restaurants, while adding a performing stage, lawn and beer-and-wine garden.

In 2015, PGIM paid nearly $289 million for a 75 percent stake, according to the Orange County Business Journal.

In 2022, the mall’s co-owners won approval to build a 300-unit apartment complex on 47 acres at Bella Terra, replacing a 149,000-square-foot store occupied by Burlington Coat Factory and a 33,000-square-foot store next door.

Plans call for a U-shaped building of four and six stories with 300 apartments and 25,000 square feet of ground-floor shops and restaurants. Construction was supposed to have begun last year, but the project never broke ground.

PGIM and DJM are also partners at Long Beach Exchange, a 266,000-square-foot shopping center they bought in early 2022 for nearly $160 million.

DJM Capital teamed up with Gaw Capital Partners in 2019 to buy the 463,000-square-foot Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood for $325 million. They renamed the outdoor mall Ovation Hollywood.

DJM also has stakes in Lido Marina Village in Newport Beach, Pacific City in Huntington Beach and Runway, an outdoor mall in Playa Vista.

In early 2022, the company bought Gateway Center, a 79,000-square-foot, nine-building retail center in Mission Viejo for $29.5 million.

— Dana Bartholomew