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Date: 12/19/2023
LONGMEADOW — The Longmeadow Shops, a retail plaza at 690 Bliss Rd., was sold by Grove Real Estate in early December to out-of-state realty management company Regency Centers for $30.4 million.
“It was just time,” said Steve Walker, owner of Grove Real Estate. “It’s a lot of work to run a shopping center. Everyone’s getting older. It was just time.”
Grove Real Estate bought The Longmeadow Shops in 1994 from its original owner, S. Prestley Blake, philanthropist and co-founder of the local restaurant chain, Friendly’s. Two months later, the soon to be defunct department store Steiger’s left the shopping center. Coupled with other empty storefronts, this left the plaza 80% vacant.
Over the next two years, tenants began to repopulate the Shops. Eventually, The Gap, Ann Taylor and Chico’s took up residency. “When you get nationals, other nationals take an interest,” Walker said. Now, the Shops have a mixture of local, regional and national tenants.
The Longmeadow Shops, one of the town’s largest single tax revenue generators, was assessed at $20.2 million in 2022. During a recent Select Board meeting, board member Mark Gold said the sale price being 50% higher than the assessed value reflected commercial properties in town being chronically undervalued, but Walker attributed the difference to the overall real estate market. He pointed out that the price of home sales has significantly increased in the past few years, as well. The plaza’s sale is another example of it being a seller’s market, he said.
The Longmeadow Shops was first marketed for sale two years ago, but Walker said the deal fell through. When Regency Centers approached him with another opportunity to sell, Walker decided to take it. He said that the new owners are a large real estate management firm with plenty of resources to put into making the Shops successful. They’ll do an incredible job,” he commented.
Grove Realty Group had owned nine shopping centers across the region at its height but has been divesting them over the past few years. With the sale of The Longmeadow Shops, the company only has one shopping center left in its portfolio. Walker, who now lives in Maine, said he plans to sell that one over the next year and fully retire.
Walker praised the town and said Longmeadow’s Planning Board, and Fire and Police departments had been wonderful to work with. “The people of Longmeadow are so blessed to have them in town,” he said.
Reflecting on the years his company had been at the helm of The Longmeadow Shops, Walker said. “We had so many successes,” Walker said, adding that he could not think of anything he would have done differently.