A Los Angeles-based investor with ties to that city’s Korean-American community has bought a majority stake in Buena Park’s largest mall.
Newkoa LLC, an investor whose holdings have included notable properties in L.A.’s Koreatown district, recently invested in a 535,000-square-foot portion of Buena Park Downtown, a regional mall a block from Knott’s Berry Farm.
The investor paid $85 million to buy Coventry Real Estate Advisors’ ownership stake in the enclosed mall, according to brokers with CBRE Group Inc. who worked on the deal.
New York-based Coventry’s portion of the mall includes tenants such as 24 Hour Fitness, Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., DSW Inc. and T.J. Maxx, as well as a movie theater and trampoline park.
Two stand-alone buildings that hold the mall’s largest tenants—Sears and Wal-Mart—are owned separately and were not part of the latest transaction.
The mall was about 93% leased at the time of the sale to Newkoa.
Buena Park Downtown “is home to very recognizable names and to many Internet-resistant tenants, such as restaurants and other experiential-oriented retailers,” said Timothy Bower, a broker with the Beverly Hills office of CBRE, who along with colleague Johnny Choi represented Newkoa in the sale.
CBRE’s Phil Voorhees represented Coventry in the sale. The sellers had listed the property last May.
LA Sale
Newkoa’s investment comes about a month after the company and its affiliates were reported to have sold their best-known property in Los Angeles: the Wilshire Galleria mall.
Local developer Harridge Development Group paid a reported $49 million for the 138,000-square-foot retail building, which is considered to be the best-known mall in Koreatown, with about 200 square blocks in an area north of the Santa Monica (10) Freeway and west of downtown.
The five-story Wilshire Galleria, once an I. Magnin department store, is at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and New Hampshire Avenue.
Korea Connection
Newkoa’s ownership group is headed up by Kee Whan Ha, a South Korea native whose real estate holdings also have included a number of area supermarkets, according to local news reports.
It’s not known whether Newkoa has any other real estate holdings in Buena Park, which combines with neighboring Fullerton for a concentration of Korean-American businesses that’s second in Southern California only to Koreatown in Los Angeles.
About 11% of Buena Park’s population—roughly 9,000 people—is Korean-American, according to 2013 U.S. census data.
Koreatown in Los Angeles is more of a business center for the ethnic community, which does not make up a majority of the residential population there.
OC overall is home to about 90,000 Korean-Americans and 9,000 businesses owned by members of the ethnic group, according to Business Journal research.
Recent developments in Buena Park’s retail market reflect the growing influence of the Korean-American community in the city.
Village Circle on Beach, a neighborhood shopping center that opened about two years ago along Beach Boulevard, is anchored by Korean grocer H-Mart and is one of several shopping centers in the area that caters to the ethnic group.
South Korea-based record label and talent agency YG Entertainment is one of the first tenants announced for The Source at Beach, a 428,000-square-foot retail development scheduled to open this year at the corner of Beach Boulevard and Orangethorpe Avenue.
YG, which represents artists such as Psy, Big Bang and 2NE1, will occupy office and studio space at the new property, along with a 40,000-square-foot, 2,000-seat concert venue.
The Source is a development of Lynwood-based M+D Properties, which has drawn favorable attention on appealing to ethnic niches with its Plaza Mexico retail center in Lynwood, near the Orange and Los Angeles county line. M+D Properties co-owner Donald Chae is Korean-American.
