Mill Valley's Shelter Bay Retail selling to JLL

Mill Valley-based Shelter Bay Retail Group, which manages 74 California retail centers, is being sold to a Chicago-based national real estate services company, increasing its management portfolio by 8.4 percent.

Terms of the deal between 29-year-old Shelter Bay Retail and JLL (NYSE: JLL), announced July 16, weren’t disclosed. The sale is expected to close by the end of the month.

Shelter Bay’s 30 employees are expected to shift to JLL, and the top principals will lead JLL’s West Coast retail property management operations. Stephen Robertson, chairman of Shelter Bay, will be director of retail business development for the West Coast. Sondra Van Metre, president and CEO, will be West Coast director of retail property management. Management teams for the properties also will stay the same.

“To sustain long-term growth for our business and our employees, we’ve been looking for the right organization to join, but finding the right cultural fit for our boutique-service model was paramount,” Van Metre said in a statement. “JLL’s corporate culture thrives on collaboration, ethics and integrity, and puts clients’ needs first. The same environment has long been our operating philosophy at Shelter Bay and will continue to guide us in our new home.”

JLL’s acumen in operations, leasing, marketing and accounting will be helpful, Robertson said.

Driving JLL’s interest in Shelter Bay Retail is a trend among owners and investors of open-air retail real estate properties and portfolios to increasingly outsource property management to third-party experts as a cost-effective alternative to in-house management, according to Greg Maloney, CEO of JLL Americas Retail.

“Combining the retail strength of our two firms under one roof allows our current and prospective clients to tap into our national network of experts and expanded service offerings on the West Coast,” Maloney said.

The Shelter Bay acquisition accelerates the growth of JLL’s management of open-air shopping centers and retail brokerage business on the West Coast, akin to JLL’s reach with office properties, according to Elizabeth Hearle, Markets West market director. Shelter Bay’s 6.5 million square feet of space management brings JLL’s retail management portfolio to 83.5 million.

“The company’s deep bench of retail management and accounting experts, coupled with the relationship with 800 retailers in its properties, will allow us to serve the needs of owners and investors,” she said in a statement.

Robertson and Van Metre formed Shelter Bay Retail Group (415-388-4460, shelterbay.com) in 1986. Originally a real estate attorney, Robertson started Shelter Bay Properties as a development, leasing and management company. Van Metre’s career has been in retail property management, including positions at Fox and Carskadon Financial Corporation and Laventhol and Horwath.

JLL’s retail real estate team (jllretail.com) numbers more than 800, including 125 retail agents. As the largest third party retail property manager in the U.S., JLL has a retail portfolio with more than 600 centers, totaling 77 million square feet under management in regional malls, lifestyle centers, grocery-anchored centers, power centers, central business districts, transportation facilities and mixed-use projects.

JLL is a Fortune

500 company with annual fee revenue of $4.7 billion and gross revenue of $5.4 billion.

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