news-record.com

GREENSBORO — A major Tennessee-based real estate company has a contract to buy Friendly Center and the other retail and office holdings of local developer Starmount Co.

CBL & Associates Properties, a real estate investment trust that owns four major shopping centers in the Triad, has struck a deal with Starmount, according to documents obtained by the News & Record.

The deal, with a sale price reportedly surpassing $600 million, includes more than 20 offices and a dozen retail centers — including Friendly and the Shops at Friendly Center. Starmount, which conceived and built Friendly, put its commercial holdings up for sale in April, and the private company has said little since then.

But sources close to the negotiations said Thursday that CBL has a contract in place. A formal announcement about the sale could come before the end of the year, sources said.

Officials with CBL declined to comment Thursday, as did Starmount President Coolidge Porterfield. Mente Benjamin, the son of Friendly founder Edward Benjamin, referred all questions to Porterfield.

Tenants reached Thursday were surprised but pleased that Starmount's top suitor is a company with significant holdings in the Triad. CBL owns Oak Hollow Mall in High Point, Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem and Randolph Mall in Asheboro. The company also developed and owns Alamance Crossing, a 142-acre outdoor shopping center in Burlington.

CBL, which reported more than $1 billion in revenues last year, ranks among the nation's top 10 shopping center owners and managers. Both Friendly and the Shops aren't surprising buys for the publicly traded company, which owns or runs about 80 malls and major retail centers.

CBL's most recent local project, Alamance Crossing, boasts some of the same tenants and a similar sprawling, town-style design as the Shops, which Starmount opened a year ago.

On the other hand, Starmount's aging strip retail centers and office buildings don't really fit the CBL profile.

"I think Friendly's driving it," said Dodson Schenck, area managing director for real estate firm CB Richard Ellis. "That's the jewel."

It's unlikely, then, that CBL would make drastic changes to Friendly and the Shops. Industry experts have speculated, however, that a national owner might sell off the older, smaller centers to a buyer more willing to spend money, make changes and find new tenants.

Parker Washburn, who owns Leon's salons at Friendly and Starmount's Westridge Square center, described herself as "guardedly optimistic" in response to the news.

"If these are the buyers of the entire Starmount portfolio, I am very comforted," she said, "but it just has to play out to see who's got what, I guess."

She and other tenants said they had worried that a distant national or overseas buyer without ties to the Triad would snap up Starmount's properties. CBL isn't the homegrown developer that built Friendly 50 years ago, but the company's growing local presence seemed to put retailers at ease.

"I could always say I prefer working with more localized business people," said Lane Schiffman, an owner of Schiffman's Jewelers, which has a store at Friendly Center.

"But I would think, in this day, in this economy, in this world we're living in, this is the way it is," he said. "You work more with these big nationals. And they've got the deep pockets to invest in these types of properties that are really valuable."

Contact Michelle Jarboe at 373-7075 or mjarboe@news-record.com