Kimco Realty adds 10 shop sites for $204M

New Hyde Park-based Kimco Realty Corp. said it spent more than $200 million in the fourth quarter to add 10 shopping centers to its holdings.

The company, a real estate investment trust, disclosed in a news release Thursday eight new purchases. Along with two previously announced purchases, the company paid $204.3 million, including assumption of $66.2 million in mortgage debt, for the 10 properties.

The properties total 1.1 million square feet of leasable space, with an overall 97 percent occupancy rate.

All eight of the new purchases are in major metropolitan areas in Colorado, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Arizona; many of the centers are anchored by grocery stores or office superstores. The two previously disclosed properties are in Texas and Colorado.

In addition to these 10 wholly owned properties, Kimco in the past quarter also bought a half-interest in a project to redevelop and operate the 1.1-million-square-foot Owings Mills Mall, in Maryland.

In Canada, Kimco entered into a partnership deal to buy a shopping center in Chilliwack, British Columbia.

And it bought vacant land in Lima, Peru, for $2.7 million, with the intention of building a 37,000-square-foot grocery-anchored center.

During the quarter Kimco sold, for about $60 million, seven shopping centers that were inconsistent with its current business strategy. And it sold five urban properties, in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York, for $15.1 million.

Real estate investment trusts like Kimco distribute most of their income to shareholders and aren't taxed at the corporate level. Kimco owned, as of Sept. 30, interests in 940 shopping centers with 138 million square feet of leasable space in 44 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and South America.

In trading Friday its shares fell 19 cents to $16.45. With nearly 700 employees, Kimco has a market capitalization of $6.73 billion and during the past four quarters had income of $83.3 million on revenue of $923.8 million.