Things might look business as usual in Auburn’s Lakeland Hills, but behind the scenes the neighborhood’s grocery-anchored hub, Lakeland Town Center, is back in play. Owner Edens has quietly put the center on the market, offering investors a fully leased retail property at a moment when grocery-anchored centers are still the steady-eddy darlings of the retail world. For shoppers and tenants, though, the expectation is simple for now: keep shopping, keep operating, and let the brokers handle the calls.
Listing details and size
According to JLL, the firm has been exclusively retained to market Lakeland Town Center to qualified investors. The listing describes the property as a 125,233-square-foot grocery-anchored center at 1402 Lake Tapps Parkway SE that is currently 100% leased. The center was renovated in 2022, has roughly 704 parking stalls and carries a weighted-average lease term of about 5.2 years, all details JLL highlights to underscore the stability of the income stream.
Owner, tenants and market profile
On its own site, owner EDENS lists Lakeland Town Center and identifies Haggen Northwest Fresh as the dominant anchor. The company’s leasing materials put the Haggen store at about 67,200 square feet, surrounded by a mix of daily-needs, medical and restaurant tenants. EDENS also pitches the property as sitting in an affluent trade area, with its brochure reporting an average household income near $183,629 within one mile of the center.
How it got here
Industry reporting and public records indicate that EDENS expanded its footprint in the Puget Sound region in 2022, with the Auburn center included in that buying push. Trade outlet The Registry documented the company’s 2022 West Coast acquisitions and its broader capital deployment strategy in the region, a spree that swept up Lakeland Town Center along the way.
What it means for Auburn
Local reporting says EDENS purchased Lakeland Town Center in 2022 and has now turned around and listed it for sale through JLL for an undisclosed price, with a sales flyer projecting one-mile household incomes to climb toward roughly $191,000 by 2030. The News Tribune covered the offering and noted that EDENS has sold other Washington holdings in recent years, leaving Lakeland as one of the firm’s remaining properties in the state.
For Auburn residents running errands, the ownership shuffle is not expected to change much in the near term. Stores remain open, leases are in place and the grocery-anchored center continues to serve the surrounding master-planned neighborhoods. For investors, on the other hand, a fully leased property in an affluent trade area checks a lot of boxes. Brokers with JLL are asking qualified buyers to register for confidential materials as the offering moves forward, and no official asking price has been released publicly.
