Pine Tree has acquired a sponsor interest in a 10-property shopping center portfolio appraised at $644 million and totaling 3.5 million square feet, a deal the national retail real estate firm is calling the largest in its 31-year history. The properties are spread across nine states and sit in top 50 U.S. markets, with grocery-anchored centers tied to tenants like Target, Sam's Club, Publix, ALDI, Sprouts Farmers Market, Food Lion, Lowe's and DICK'S Sporting Goods.
According to a company announcement carried by prnewswire.com, the interest was acquired from SITE Centers in partnership with a large international investor, though the evidence reviewed does not identify that investor by name. The release lists the properties involved as Ahwatukee Foothills Towne Center, Ashley Crossing, Brookside Marketplace, Commonwealth Center, Connecticut Commons, Independence Commons, Poyner Place, Route 22 Retail Center, Towne Center Prado and University Centre. As CoStar News reported, the deal pushes Pine Tree past $1 billion in acquisitions over the last 12 months.
CEO Calls It a Career Milestone
Pine Tree CEO Peter Borzak described the transaction in stark terms, saying it was “the single-largest transaction in our 31-year history,” per the company's own release. That framing lines up with the scale of the deal: a $644 million appraisal on a portfolio that stretches across nine states, built almost entirely around grocery anchors and a handful of big-box retailers that tend to draw reliable weekly foot traffic.
The acquisition also lifts Pine Tree's broader numbers. The company says it now owns or operates more than $4 billion of open-air retail across the United States, covering 20 million square feet, with this deal alone growing its assets under management past that $4 billion mark, per the same release. Pine Tree's own website echoes those figures, describing itself as a national, privately owned, vertically integrated retail real estate owner and operator with more than $4 billion in assets under management and 20 million square feet of open-air shopping centers.
A Different Number From an Earlier Deal
Those figures do not fully match how the company's assets under management were described after its last major purchase. When Pine Tree, in partnership with a state pension fund, bought six open-air shopping centers from SITE Centers for $495 million, Shopping Center Business reported that the deal brought the company's assets under management to approximately $2.5 billion and 20 million square feet.
That 2024 portfolio, totaling 2.5 million square feet, included properties in Fort Lauderdale, Columbus, Cincinnati, Phoenix and Portland, Shopping Center Business reported. The six properties were named as The Fountains, Arrowhead Crossing, Easton Market, Kenwood Square, Polaris Towne Center and Tanasbourne Town Center, anchored by tenants including Kroger, New Seasons Market, The Fresh Market, Target, Ulta Beauty, Nordstrom Rack, DICK'S Sporting Goods and 13 stores leased by TJX Cos. Separate reporting from marketscreener.com put that 2024 agreement's value at approximately $500 million, with the deal signed on May 17, 2024, and completed by June 12, 2024.
Part of a Pattern of Steady Growth
Pine Tree's appetite for grocery-anchored retail isn't new. In March 2022, the company added the Sunset Esplanade shopping complex in Portland, Oregon's western suburbs in a transaction valued at $66 million, according to a report from CoStar that was later corrected to clarify the deal involved 10 parcels. Pine Tree says on its own website that it has completed more than 200 projects since its founding in 1995, a track record that frames this latest $644 million portfolio as the largest single step in a three-decade buildout rather than an isolated bet.
The purchase price or ownership percentage Pine Tree paid for its sponsor interest in the new 3.5-million-square-foot portfolio was not disclosed in the materials reviewed, nor were the exact locations or individual valuations of all 10 properties. What is clear from the company's own account is the scale of the ambition: a nine-state footprint of grocery-anchored centers, built on a strategy of pairing national retailers with everyday necessities, now folded into a portfolio the company says tops $4 billion.
