Powerhouse Plaza Sold to Mass. Firm
West Lebanon — The Powerhouse Plaza shopping center has been sold for $12.35 million to Eastern Real Estate, a private commercial real estate acquisition, capital investment, project development and asset management firm based in Woburn, Mass.
Boston-based Cushman & Wakefield announced the sale on Thursday on behalf of the plaza’s owner, Dead River Properties of Portland, Maine, a division of the Bangor, Maine-based petroleum company Dead River Co.
All of the storefronts in the 81,000-square-foot shopping center are leased, Cushman & Wakefield said in a news release. Tenants include a Shaw’s Supermarket, a Rite Aid pharmacy, a New Hampshire state liquor store, a 99 Restaurant, a U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Center, Board & Basket, General Nutrition Center and a UPS store. The shopping center has a daily traffic count of 17,000 vehicles. Some 46,000 people with an average household income of $87,200 live within 10 miles of the center, Cushman & Wakefield said.
“In addition to its strategic location and superior visibility, the center benefits from the permanence of national and regional tenants,” Geoffrey Millerd, Cushman & Wakefield executive vice president, said in the release. Tenants have an average tenure at the center of 18 years, he said.
The first phase of the Powerhouse Plaza was completed in 1992. In 1999, the New Hampshire Retirement System, which had bought the 7.4-acre plaza for $9 million in 1994, sold it to Dead River Properties for $10.4 million. Its current assessed value is $13.54 million.
Privately held Eastern Real Estate was founded in 2000 and has developed more than 12 million square feet of retail, office and mixed use projects with a total market value in excess of $2 billion. The company “seeks to identify and acquire value-added real estate candidates that can be transformed into exceptional commercial properties,” the company’s website says.
Its principals, Dan Doherty and Brian Kelly, formed a partnership in 1994 to buy the 1.2 million-square-foot former Wang corporate headquarters in Lowell, Mass., at auction for $525,000. In 1998, after turning the property into a multi-tenant office tower, they sold it for more than $100 million.
