The La Alameda Shopping Center in Walnut Park has been refinanced for $40 million.

The multitenant retail center, which is roughly 245,000 square feet, was built in 2008. It has roughly 227,000 square feet of retail space and 18,000 square feet of office space. The complex has six building clusters.
 
Mortgage banking firm Pacific Southwest Realty Services’ Kostas Kavayiotidis, Mike Davis and Jacob Lee arranged the 10-year, interest-only, nonrecourse loan for the center.

Morgan Stanley provided the financing.

The shopping center is run by Culver City-based borrower Primestor Development Inc.
 
Tenants at the shopping center include Marshalls, Chipotle, Bank of America and Ross.

Primestor was founded in 1992. It has developed, managed and acquired millions of square feet of space in the United States and has a portfolio worth more than $750 million.

Davis said he also was involved in a loan given to the La Alameda Shopping Center 10 years ago. The loan came from an insurance company.

“The loan was coming up. It was due and had a maturity right as Covid restrictions were very difficult down here. It being a retail property, it was a very difficult time in the marketplace to get financing down,” Davis said.

He added that while drug and grocery stores have continued to do well “any other kind of retail really struggled because they had to shut their doors” due to Covid-related restrictions.

In the La Alameda Shopping Center, 40% of tenants were considered essential businesses whereas 60% were not and could be closed, David said.

This, in turn, made it difficult to find the right loan for a property.

“Almost any retail landlord last year in order to keep their tenants had to give different types of concessions or rework leases in some way,” Davis said. “It was a tough time. We’ve never had the government shutting down businesses, and a lot of tenants were unable to get revenue and couldn’t pay their rents.”

Davis said that now that things are starting to reopen and improve, so will the ability to get financing, but there are still some complications.