Cedar Shopping Centers Inc., in filings with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, said it intends to buy the half-empty Lititz Pike center for $11.5 million.

To help fill the vacant space there, the company said it is negotiating leases with L.A. Fitness Center for 46,000 square feet and Price Rite supermarkets for 30,000 square feet.

Leo S. Ullman, president of Cedar Shopping Centers, could not be reached for comment this morning.

But the SEC papers and a company press release show the investment here is part of a sweeping expansion by the company, involving eight acquisitions to be funded by a $187 million common stock offering.

Cedar Shopping Centers, based in Port Washington, N.Y., already owns 14 centers, mostly in the eastern half of Pennsylvania. They include the Camp Hill Mall and The Point Shopping Center in Harrisburg.

The Golden Triangle Shopping Center, in Manheim Township, is a neighborhood center that opened in 1960 and has been expanded several times.

It now measures 221,500 square feet -- slightly larger than a Wal-Mart supercenter -- on 21 acres. But the center is only 47 percent occupied, according to the SEC filings.

Anchor tenants are Marshalls clothing store in 30,000 square feet and Staples office-supplies store in 24,000 square feet.

The mall's other 12 tenants include Chi Chi's restaurant, Blockbuster video store, Dollar Express, Holiday Hair and Sally Beauty Supply.

However, Golden Triangle has been hurt by a pair of large and lingering vacancies.

The former Ames store of 80,000 square feet has been empty for more than a year, and the former Costless Home Store, 22,000-square-foot store which briefly replaced Dunham's Sporting Goods, has been dark for more than two years.

Whether L.A. Fitness Center or Price Rite would open in either the former Ames or former Costless spaces could not be determined this morning.

Price Rite is a discount supermarket chain that describes its prices as up to 50 percent less than regular supermarket prices.

Generally, Price Rite stores are smaller than regular-size supermarkets, occupying spaces of about 28,000 to 30,000 square feet. They also tend to offer fewer items and services to keep prices down.

Price Rite's parent company is Wakefern Food Corp. of Elizabeth, N.J., which also runs the larger Shop Rite supermarket chain.

L.A. Fitness Center is not affiliated with L.A. Weight Loss, which currently leases space in the Golden Triangle.

Cedar Shopping Centers, a real estate investment trust that's publicly held, said it hopes to complete its purchase of the center by the end of the year.

The price, to be increased by $150,000 if the two leases now under negotiation are signed, would be nearly triple what the Golden Triangle fetched the last time it changed hands.

According to county records, it was acquired in 1986 for $4.25 million by Triangle Center Associates. Triangle Center Associates, in turn, has ties to Cedar Shopping Centers, the SEC filings show.

Triangle Center Associates is an affiliate of Cedar Bay Co., a New York partnership which lists Ullman as an executive officer and director, but not an owner.

Ullman also is chairman of Brentway Management, the company which currently runs the center.

His Cedar Shopping Centers has been struggling financially in recent years. The SEC filings show it last posted a net profit in 1999, when it was $64,000 in the black.

Since then, it had net losses of $13,000 in 2000, $147,000 in 2001, $468,000 in 2002 and $239,000 in the first half of this year.

Revenues, though, have soared from $2.5 million in 1999 to $11.4 million in the first half of this year, as the company has added to its portfolio of properties.

(Staff writer Jane Holahan contributed to this report.) blog comments powered by Disqus