InvenTrust Properties sold five Southern California shopping centers for $306 million as the firm looks to exit the state and focus on its investments in Atlanta, Phoenix and other fast-growing Sun Belt cities.
Nuveen, the investment manager of retirement fund TIAA, bought the grocery-anchored community and neighborhood centers with a total of roughly 740,000 square feet across Los Angeles, San Diego and Riverside counties.
InvenTrust, a retail-focused real estate investment trust based near Chicago, said it plans to reinvest proceeds from the sale into markets such as Atlanta, Phoenix, Central Florida, San Antonio, and Charleston, South Carolina.
“Rotating capital from California has been a strategic objective for some time," InvenTrust CEO DJ Busch said in a statement. "We believe that simplification and portfolio concentration in growth-oriented Sun Belt markets where we have been actively investing will further create long-term value for [company] shareholders.”
In November, InvenTrust sold a shopping center near Santa Clarita, north of Los Angeles, for $57.8 million. The trust in recent months has acquired properties in Southwest Florida and South Carolina.
The transactions come as investor demand for retail properties increases across the United States. Retail investment sales volume totaled nearly $60 billion in 2024 — an 8% annual increase — and the momentum has continued into this year, according to CoStar's national retail report.
The centers sold to Nuveen range from just under 79,000 square feet to nearly 270,000 square feet, CoStar data shows. Brokers from several large real estate services firms were involved in the transaction, including CBRE, Colliers, Newmark and Marcus & Millichap.
InvenTrust said it plans to sell its last California property by the end of the year and will "continue to pursue new opportunities to grow its Sun Belt portfolio."