Nuveen Real Estate has expanded its retail holdings with the acquisition of Highpoint Marketplace, a grocery-anchored shopping center in Aurora, Colo. The open-air center totals 113,833 square feet and traded for $36.3 million, which equates to approximately $319 per square foot, according to reporting from Commercial Search.
The seller, Gerrity Group, previously acquired the Safeway-anchored property in 2018 for $24 million. The latest transaction marks a notable step-up in pricing over that prior trade, reflecting changes in investor appetite and valuation for stabilized, grocery-anchored retail since Gerrity’s acquisition.
Highpoint Marketplace is located at 18730 E. Hampden Ave. in Aurora. The roughly 15-acre site sits just east of South Tower Road in a residential area, approximately 9 miles from Aurora’s city center and about 15 miles southeast of downtown Denver. Developed in 2001, the property consists of three buildings that serve the surrounding housing communities with daily-needs retail and services.
The shopping center last underwent renovations in 2007. Safeway anchors the property with a 55,580-square-foot store that serves as the primary grocery draw for the center. In addition to the grocer, the tenant roster includes fitness, beauty, health, and dining concepts, with Wendy’s cited as one of the food offerings at the site.
CM Commercial Partners oversees leasing at Highpoint Marketplace, working with both national and local retailers to maintain occupancy and curate the tenant mix. The combination of a large-format grocer, service-oriented tenants, and quick-service dining positions the center as a neighborhood-serving retail hub.
Gerrity Group, the seller in the transaction, owns and operates 19 properties across the western United States, with a stated focus on grocery-anchored shopping centers. Its disposition of Highpoint Marketplace fits within that specialization, even as it continues to maintain a broader portfolio of similar assets in other western markets.
Nuveen’s acquisition underscores ongoing institutional interest in grocery-anchored retail centers that offer consistent foot traffic and daily-needs spending, particularly in established suburban locations with strong surrounding residential density. While specific hold strategies and financing details were not disclosed, the trade highlights continued capital allocation to necessity-based retail in the Denver-area market.
