PORTLAND, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ScanlanKemperBard Cos., the Portland, Ore.-based real estate merchant banking firm has acquired a 505,918 square-foot (net rentable), value-add retail portfolio for $43.14 million. SKB acquired the portfolio in a partnership with Praedium Group, New York, NY.

The portfolio includes nine former grocery stores and two gas station parcels in Arizona, California and Colorado. The properties were part of a 65-store portfolio that Albertson’s sold in 2006 to an institutional investment group led by Cerberus Management and Kimco Realty Corp. The group subsequently ceased operations at most of the properties.

SKB plans to enhance the properties’ value by creating attractive single- or multi-tenant retail assets and then bring them back to market upon stabilization. The company has retained Blake Hunt Ventures to assist in the repositioning, as well as retail redevelopment specialists Mena Architects and WR Layne Construction & Engineering. Staubach and Colliers International are the leasing agents.

“The portfolio is 25 percent pre-leased to Ross, Staples and Office Depot and leases in negotiation would fill an additional 21 percent of the space with timing and economics that exceed pro forma expectations,” says SKB president Todd Gooding. “All of the stores are less than 20 years old and divisible into two- or three-tenant floor plates.”

Most of the properties are located in or near Phoenix, where population growth has far outpaced the national average and where the overall average retail vacancy is currently 5.1 percent. The one California asset is located in the Northern California city of Pittsburg, CA, where retail vacancy is currently 3.9 percent. The Colorado asset is located in the City of Highlands Ranch, where retail vacancy is 4.7 percent.