Doral retail deal prices a leased bond

A newly built, Whole Foods-anchored retail center in Doral has traded for $83 million in a sale that looks more like a bond purchase than a property play, with SJC Ventures selling the 88,938-square-foot center on 10 acres to a group led by Jonathan Perlman, who runs senior living and memory care facilities, according to Connect CRE. Perlman's company assumed $50.1 million of existing debt assigned to Bank of Texas, and the price works out to just under $1,000 a square foot. The sale follows the transaction this publication reported yesterday.

The trade did not include the 1.88-acre parcel leased to Chick-fil-A, a carve-out that leaves the drive-thru pad with the seller, while the buyer collects the center's in-line tenants and the 43,000-square-foot Whole Foods, which opened earlier this summer. The rest of the roster—J. Crew, Shake Shack, First Watch, GoodVets, The Spot Barbershop, Encore Nails, Vio MedSpa, and Apizza Brooklyn Resto + Vino—skews toward daily needs and food-and-service businesses.

A senior-living operator has no obvious synergy with a J. Crew or a Shake Shack, so the purchase is really a grocery-anchored income stream on a new building, at a basis that makes it a long-duration asset. The assumed debt adds leverage to that income stream, so the trade works only if the center's rents hold or rise as the initial leases roll.

Because the center broke ground in 2024 and was only recently completed, the tenant roster is early in its term. If Doral's demographics keep pushing retail demand, this price will look conservative; if the roster needs refreshing sooner than expected, the leverage magnifies the downside. For now, the bid for quality grocery-anchored retail has broadened beyond the usual institutional names. Watch the lease roll.