Chesterbrook Shopping Center sold at auction for $8.9 million!

Like many people living in the western section of Tredyffrin, I use Chesterbrook Boulevard to go to Gateway Shopping Center or Valley Forge Park, which has me regularly passing by the sad, nearly empty Chesterbrook Shopping Center. Developed in the early 1980’s, the Chesterbrook Shopping Center is located in the middle a planned mixed-use community that includes the Chesterbrook Corporate Center and the 865-acre residential community.

The 122,216 square foot shopping center lost its anchor store, Genuadi’s supermarket in August 2010.   With the departure of the 40,000 square foot grocery store, the Center saw a significant drop in foot traffic and began a downward spiral as the empty storefronts continued.  Routinely on the weekends, the left side of the parking lot at Chesterbrook poses as a used car location, regularly sporting 5 or 6 cars with their sale signs in the window.

In June of this year, the Center went into foreclosure – Chesterbrook Village Center Associates (owned by Brixmor Property Group) owed their lender approximately $9.5 million.  As a point of record, Brixmor purchased Centro Properties Group in 2011 (for a price of $9.4 billion), which included the Chesterbrook Shopping Center.  Each time the property changed hands; local residents would get excited, expecting that improvements and updates to the center would happen.  Unfortunately, that was never the case.

About a month ago, a public notice of a receiver’s sale of Chesterbrook Shopping Center on Friday, November 1, was put up on the front door of Genuardi’s and elsewhere through the Center. According to the statement, the Center would be sold to the highest bidder.  Real estate attorney Murph Wysocki attended the auction and provided a summary for Community Matters.  Click here to read full story.

I hope that Chesterbrook Shopping Center is now on to a brighter future.  Certainly, the property does present its own set of challenges and its dated look is screaming for a ‘makeover’ but it’s a goldmine redevelopment opportunity for a the right developer!  Here’s hoping that there’s better days ahead for Chesterbrook Shopping Center and that it’s time has finally come!

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Pattye Benson

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