A company headed up by billionaire St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke is the new owner of the Lincoln Crossing shopping center in north Lincoln.
According to real estate documents filed last week, The Kroenke Group closed earlier this month on the deal, paying $24.75 million for the shopping center at 27th and Superior streets.
Officials from the Kroenke Group, which is based in Columbia, Missouri, did not respond to a request for comment on the sale.
At about 650,000 square feet, the 20-year-old Lincoln Crossing is one of the city's largest shopping centers. It has several large big-box stores, including Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Gordmans, Slumberland and Toys R Us. It had been owned since it was built in 1995 by the Lerner Co. of Omaha.
It's not the first investment in Lincoln by The Kroenke Group. The company bought the Van Dorn Plaza shopping center at 48th and Van Dorn streets two years ago for $11 million, and it also bought a self-storage business at 61st and Cornhusker Highway last year for $3.2 million.
People are also reading…
The Kroenke Group's purchase of Lincoln Crossing is the latest of several large commercial real estate sales in just the first three months of 2015.
Integris Ventures of St. Louis bought Centro Plaza shopping center at 48th and R streets last month for nearly $17 million.
In January, AJ Capital of Chicago bought the downtown Holiday Inn for more than $22 million.
Also in January, Starwood Capital Partners, which in 2012 bought Gateway Mall, paid $13.3 million to buy The View student apartment complex at 301 W. Charleston St.
Richard Meginnis, executive vice president at NAI FMA Realty, which produces a twice-yearly Lincoln commercial real estate report, said there are two main reasons for the increase in large local commercial real estate sales.
The first is that companies have a lot of capital to invest and because interest rates are low it's causing them to invest more in hard assets, Meginnis said.
"Companies across the country have been doing it and it's finally starting to get to Lincoln," he said.
The second reason is a huge market in commercial mortgage-backed securities that are coming due between now and 2017.
Meginnis said many of the commercial loans taken out 10 years ago had very poor underwriting standards and did not require much equity. As those borrowers try to refinance the loans, they are finding they can't do so without putting in more cash, so they are choosing to sell instead.
The Kroenke Group owns commercial real estate all over the country.
Stan Kroenke, who is married to a niece of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and is estimated to be worth more than $5 billion, has been in the news lately because he is trying to bring an NFL team to the Los Angeles area.
In addition to owning the Rams, he also is the largest investor in English soccer club Arsenal. He used to own The Colorado Avalanche and Denver Nuggets, but transferred ownership to his son when he became majority owner of the Rams.