Sale of grocery-anchored retail center in Houston closes

HOUSTON, Feb. 29, 2024 – JLL Capital Markets announced today that it brokered the sale of Garden Oaks, a 106,858-square-foot, grocery-anchored retail center located in Houston, Texas. The center includes Aldi, Planet Fitness, Dollar Tree, Subway and Leslie’s Poolsmart.

JLL represented the seller, a subsidiary of Silver Star Properties REIT, Inc. (“Silver Star”). Whitestone REIT acquired the asset.

The grocery-anchored retail center is located in the heart of Garden Oaks on Shepherd Drive and spans from W. 38^th Street to Garden Oaks Blvd. It is strategically positioned at the center of the fast-growing Garden Oaks neighborhood at the center of the area’s primary retail corridor on Shepherd Drive. Major retailers, such as HEB, Whole Foods and Home Depot, are all located within a half mile of the site, and Target has announced plans to add a store to the area in the near future. The center is just one mile north of the 610 “loop” freeway, which connects Garden Oaks and Heights residents to the Galleria/Uptown market and downtown.

“Silver Star’s disposition of Garden Oaks Shopping Center was a major transaction for the firm as it pivots from ownership of legacy assets in the traditional commercial property sectors to self-storage and positions its Hartman SPE, LLC subsidiary to exit from bankruptcy. This sale brings our disposition total for Silver Star to $225 million since the beginning of 2023. We are very pleased with the execution from the JLL team on Garden Oaks Shopping Center,” said David Wheeler, Silver Star’s President and Co-CEO.

The JLL Capital Markets Investment Sales and Advisory team was led by Senior Managing Director Ryan West, Senior Director John Indelli and Analysts Ryan Olive and Clay Anderson.

“The sale of Garden Oaks Center demonstrated strong demand from both private and institutional capital players for well-located grocery and fitness anchored retail centers,” said West. “We are excited to see continued growth of the asset under Whitestone’s ownership. The buyer demand in our marketing process was a testament to the continued strong retail fundamentals the retail space is seeing, mixed with investor capital allocating from other asset classes and into dominant retail assets and daily needs community centers.”

“The fundamental performance of the retail sector and grocery-anchored centers in high-growth Texas markets continue to drive demand from a wide variety of investors,” added West.

“The acquisition of Garden Oaks Center will make an excellent addition to the buyer’s existing portfolio,” Indelli added.

“Garden Oaks property values are up nearly 50% since 2019, and the area is poised to continue with very strong growth as young professionals settle beyond the Heights area and take advantage of the larger plots and tree-lined streets in Garden Oaks,” said Whitestone REIT COO, Christine Mastandrea. “The center fits well with our strategy to own high quality centers that successfully serve the surrounding neighborhood.”

JLL Capital Markets is a full-service global provider of capital solutions for real estate investors and occupiers. The firm's in-depth local market and global investor knowledge delivers the best-in-class solutions for clients — whether investment sales and advisory, debt advisory, equity advisory or a recapitalization. The firm has more than 3,000 Capital Markets specialists worldwide with offices in nearly 50 countries.

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Silver Star owns and operates office and retail assets in the Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio markets, and is positioning itself to acquire assets in other states, seeing specific attributes of other states pose attractive qualities for future investments. Silver Star will focus on acquiring well-located self-storage facilities in markets with significant demand for storage space. The plan to expand the Company’s asset classes should allow the Silver Star to maintain a resilient investment approach and create a more inflation-resistant portfolio.

Whitestone REIT (NYSE: WSR) is a community-centered real estate investment trust (REIT) that acquires, owns, operates, and develops open-air, retail centers located in some of the fastest growing markets in the country: Phoenix, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio.

Our centers are convenience focused: merchandised with a mix of service-oriented tenants providing food (restaurants and grocers), self-care (health and fitness), services (financial and logistics), education and entertainment to the surrounding communities. The Company believes its strong community connections and deep tenant relationships are key to the success of its current centers and its acquisition strategy. For additional information, please visit the Company's investor relations website.