Irgang Group is growing its portfolio of suburban shopping centers with the purchase of Poplin Place, a fully leased retail center located roughly 20 miles southeast of uptown Charlotte.

The Nyack, New York-based real estate investment and management firm acquired Poplin Place from Big V Property Group. Irgang Group paid roughly $34.5 million for the shopping center, according to CoStar data. Big V Property Group purchased the property in 2018 from InvenTrust Properties Corp. for $28.3 million, CoStar data shows.

Built in 2005, Poplin Place is located on 30.2 acres at 2901 W. U.S. Highway 74 in Monroe, a suburban Charlotte community that's expected to grow its population by 12% over the next five years, according to JLL, which represented Big V Property Group in the sale.

"As we looked for acquisition opportunities in the Southeast, Poplin Place provided more than a outstanding tenant lineup and demographics," Irgang Group CEO Mark Irgang said in a press release. "We were also impressed by the center's ability to rapidly recover from the wave of retail bankruptcies and downsizings in the 2018 to 2020 period. Big V did a superb job repositioning the property with a stable mix of strong tenants well suited to this growing market."

Within a 25-month period, major vacancies at Poplin Place were picked up by Burlington and Popshelf, which signed new leases totaling 42,000 square feet, taking the former Gander Mountain and Party City spaces, respectively, according to Irgang Group. Additionally, the shopping center's former Dress Barn space was divided to accommodate new tenants Bath & Body Works and Spectrum. Existing anchor tenants T.J. Maxx, Ross Dress for Less and PetSmart completed long-term renewals for another 82,287 square feet, according to Irgang Group. All told, those new leases and renewals account for about 70% of Poplin Place's total footprint. The property is also shadow-anchored by a Target.

"Additionally, underscoring its commitment to the property, Big Lots previously renewed and enlarged its Poplin Place footprint to 37,000 square feet by expanding into the adjoining former Pier 1 space," Irgang said.

This purchase marks Irgang Group's third retail property acquisition since September 2021. The firm had previously focused on multi-unit residential and mixed-use properties in New York City but began diving into the suburban shopping center sector last year. Irgang Group began in September 2021 with the purchase of Main Street South Fulton, a fully leased, 129,449-square-foot shopping center anchored by Kroger in metro Atlanta. The company then purchased Union Lake Crossing, a 393,000-square-foot center in Millville, New Jersey, which is roughly 40 miles south of Philadelphia.

"While proceeding with a number of urban redevelopment projects in New York City, we also continue to pursue additional retail real estate opportunities across the country," Irgang said. "Our acquisition team is focused on well-anchored outdoor centers with a minimum of 100,000 square feet of gross leasable area."

For the Record

Benjamin Bruner of Bruner Group represented the buyer. JLL's Thomas Kolarczyk, Danny Finkle and Eric Williams represented the seller.