CenterSquare Investment Management and Arch Street Capital Advisors have joined forces to target high-end service properties in the Sun Belt states in the US.

The venture is being supported with an acquisition financing facility from Barclays, providing the joint venture with the ability to acquire $150m (€126m) of service properties.

Service properties, a niche sector of retail, comprise institutional quality, multi-tenant shopping centres leased to businesses whose customers must visit the store to consume the service.

The companies said the new platform has closed three separate transactions, acquiring four properties located in Orlando, Houston and Atlanta.

The joint venture is actively seeking new service property investment opportunities in the $7m to 20m price range, the companies said in a joint statement.

CenterSquare Senior Vice President Robert Holuba, said: “Changing consumer patterns have created meaningful tailwinds behind the growth of the service sector, which is translating into strong fundamentals for essential service retail properties.

“While much of the retail sector continues to be painted with the same negative brush, we recognise there is a unique window of opportunity to acquire high performing service property assets at favourable pricing. For these reasons, we continue to view these investment opportunities as some of the most attractive risk-adjusted returns in the market today.”

Gautam Mashettiwar, a senior VP at Arch Street Capital Advisors, said:

“We are excited to partner with CenterSquare on this sector-focused strategy. The service properties sector remains highly fragmented and provides a compelling opportunity to create a diversified portfolio of attractive yield generating properties.”

To read the digital edition of the latest IPE Real Assets magazine click here.