Shepherd Mall sold

[Patrick]

I'd love to see this center comeback someday into a nice retail center, but it won't happen anytime soon, if ever. Looks like a new investor paid a pretty penny for the center. It's nice to see Shepherd Mall holding its value as a business park. At least it's not sitting half vacant like Heritage Park Mall.

I do think it may be time for a name change though....how about Shepherd Office Park????? Keeping mall in the name is confusing for visitors.

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"L.A. investor pays $48.5 M for Shepherd Mall
by Brian Brus
The Journal Record
6/14/2005


The new owners of Shepherd Mall, formerly one of Oklahoma City's oldest retail landmarks, plan to maintain its current use as an office complex, property management spokesman Craig Walsh said.
The 636,471-square-foot mall sold to a Los Angeles investor for $48.5 million Friday, public records show. Former co-owner Jim Williams confirmed the sale but would not discuss other details of the deal.

"It was a nice price," Williams said. He held the property for 11 years with partners John Bridwell and the late Dale Garrett. "We enjoyed owning the mall."

Walsh, a vice president with Standard Management Co. in Los Angeles, said he has been researching potential replacement restaurant tenants. Furr's cafeteria, near the east end of the mall on NW 23rd, closed two years ago.

"It's basically an office park at this point, and there are some restaurant uses in the facility," Walsh said.

Appropriately enough, Walsh used to live in Oklahoma City in the 1970s and '80s just before the mall began its decline and lost its major retail anchors.

"With the recent vacancy of a sit-down restaurant, we have not yet determined if that's the highest or best use of that space at this time," he said. "But if a restaurant should be interested and we determine that's best, then, yeah, we would be interested in a restaurant."

Otherwise, he said, the mall's current use will not change: "I think that's been a very successful path, and it's something the new ownership fully intends to continue with."

The 44.48-acre mall has been operating at near 90 percent occupancy, Williams said. He would not discuss the lease price per square foot.

The Oklahoma County Assessor's Office showed the market value at $18.16 million.

Mall manager Ed Duclos said he was told about the sale by the new owner, whom he identified as VTA Oklahoma City LLC, but as of Monday had not yet been given any details of the transfer or plans for the mall.

Williams identified the buyer as Alan Robbins, who likely would not alter the mall's function.

"I think it's just an investment for him," Williams said.

Robbins, a former California state senator, could not be reached for comment.

Constructed in 1964, Shepherd Mall was the first enclosed retail mall built in Oklahoma City. It thrived with anchors J.C. Penney, TG&Y and Dillard's, and a three-story Sears store just a block away on 23rd Street. However, as Penn Square Mall evolved less than 10 miles away at the intersection of Northwest Expressway and Interstate 44, Shepherd's customer traffic fell. The major stores began closing and Shepherd Mall was left a ghost town.

Management began transitioning the mall to office space in the 1990s, but the real boost came from hundreds of displaced workers from downtown when the Murrah Building was bombed in 1995. Several of those temporary tenants remained, including the Social Security Administration, and the mall's former store faces were filled out with wall construction. "

[mranderson]

"I do think it may be time for a name change though....how about Shepherd Office Park????? Keeping mall in the name is confusing for visitors."

I would like Shepherd Center for the new name. It has a bit more class.

[Patrick]

Wow, I didn't realize that the last time Shepherd Mall sold, it sold for a little over $3 million. Wow, the recent owners made quite n profit off of Shepherd Mall. I guess turning the mall into an office complex payed off, for them at least.

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"Sale of mall shows worth of market

By Richard Mize
The Oklahoman

The sale of Shepherd Mall to a West Coast investor for a reported $48.5 million -- 15 times what the sellers paid for it in 1994 -- shows that weary California capital still is finding a home in Oklahoma, a property specialist said.
Shephard Mall, an office complex -- not a retail center -- for years, last sold as a languishing, 30-year-old mall for $3.25 million 11 years ago, according to news reports then. Jim Williams, John Bridwell and D.W. Garrett bought the 636,471-square-foot mall at 2401 NW 23 and began turning it into offices.

At the time of sale last week, Shepherd Mall was 90 percent occupied, and the purchaser was VTA Oklahoma City LLC, with Alan Robbins, a former California state senator, as principal, according to reports.

Williams was out of town Tuesday and could not be reached. A spokesman in the mall management office said no one had any comment.

Tenants were learning about the change early this week, according to a spokesman at the State Historic Preservation Office, one of several government agencies leasing space at Shepherd.

The sale price was more than twice the market value recorded by the county assessor's office, which had it marked at $18.1 million.

The sale price of about $76 per square foot seemed on the high side for office space built in 1964. In comparison, 782,315-square-foot, 1980s-era Leadership Square downtown, comparable but in size only, sold last month for $78 per square foot.

Meaningful comparisons between Shepherd Mall and other office buildings are difficult because Shepherd looks, and feels, like a mall.

However, it has features that make it attractive for some office users, said Ford Price, co-managing partner of Price Edwards & Co., which was not involved with the transaction but watches every major deal in the metro area.

Price said office tenants needing lots of parking space, such as state agencies that deal with the public and employers like Farmers Insurance Group and America Online, which have lots of employees, have found Shepherd Mall attractive. Farmers, with about 150,000 square feet, is the largest tenant. America Online has about 80,000 square feet.

Price said the main significance of the sale was the buyer -- another Californian. "The continued influx of capital from California -- we continue to see buyers moving into this market for all kinds of property," he said. Returns "are very attractive compared to the yields they can get back in California."

Oklahoma City, Price said, is attractive to capital worn out by the "white hot" California property market.

Price said the high price also confirms Shepherd Mall's niche as a former urban mall turned office complex. Not many mall owners could do what the former owners did to reposition the property, he said. "