Kroger said today that it will close its North Raleigh store in the Wakefield Commons shopping center this summer because the location failed to meet sales expectations.

The announcement comes a week after Wakefield Commons was sold by Centro Properties Group, a debt-laden Australian mall owner that is in the process of selling all of its U.S. assets.

The center’s new owner is Westdale Real Estate Investment and Management, a private firm based in Dallas. Westdale said in a release that it acquired the property from a distressed owner for a “significant discount” and plans to improve the tenant mix to better server the affluent customers in the area.

Wakefield Commons includes 160,949 square feet of retail. In addition to Kroger, its other anchor tenant is a 12-screen Marquee Cinemas theater.

The Kroger store’s operating results do not justify keeping it open, said Jay Cummings, president of Kroger Mid-Atlantic, in a statement.

Kroger says the sale of Wakefield Commons had nothing to do with the decision to close the store on July 9.
 

Two Triangle shopping centers are changing hands as a result of Blackstone Group's purchase of the U.S. assets of the Australian shopping mall owner Centro.

Devonshire Place in Cary and Wakefield Commons in North Raleigh are both owned by Centro Properties Group. The company owns a total of 24 properties in North Carolina, according to its website.

Blackstone is purchasing all of Centro's U.S. assets for $9.4 billion in a deal that shows how the credit markets are thawing, and how investors believe that commercial real estate property values are poised to rebound.

Blackstone will hold on to the assets and wait for property values to recover, Bloomberg News reported today, quoting a person close to the deal.