B&C buys shopping center near Wilmington, N.C.

Burroughs & Chapin Co. Inc., a company whose history is intertwined with Myrtle Beach, is branching beyond the Grand Strand with the purchase of a shopping center near Wilmington, N.C.

B&C announced Tuesday that it bought Lumina Station, a complex that features specialty shops, restaurants and 18,974 square feet of office space. The shopping center, which opened in 1996, has an architecture inspired by Lumina, the Wrightsville Beach dance pavilion from 1905 until it closed in 1973.

This will be B&C’s first commercial shopping center outside the Grand Strand -- and more could be in the works, B&C spokeswoman Lei Gainer said.

“Burroughs & Chapin plans to build a best-in-class retail portfolio that will create long-term value for our shareholders,” she said. “A cornerstone of our company’s investment strategy is to acquire properties with enriching environments that are the center of retail, dining and entertainment within their submarkets. Some of those properties are likely to be outside the Grand Strand.”

B&C’s roots run deep along the Grand Strand with developments such as The Myrtle Beach Pavilion Amusement Park, which shut down after the 2006 season; Broadway at the Beach and shopping centers such as Seaboard Commons with Target in Myrtle Beach and South Strand Commons featuring the area’s only Kohl’s store off S.C. 544. The company also partnered to build Coastal Grand mall and still owns the mall’s outparcels.

In late 2013, B&C bought Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach for $43 million and has been sprucing up the shopping and entertainment complex. A cluster of rides near the carousel will be added this summer.

But B&C has struggled to duplicate that success outside the market.

Its planned Green Diamond project near Columbia in the early 2000s unraveled amid legal battles after Richland County’s new flood-insurance map put 70 percent of the property in an undevelopable floodway. B&C, which had bought the property in 1999, had brought in additional investors and was part of the group known as Columbia Venture.

And in 2005, B&C planned to enter the Raleigh, N.C.-area by partnering with a real estate firm to build the 1,400-acre Wendell Falls residential and commercial development, which included 4,000 homes and about 450,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, plus a county park and elementary school. The project got caught in the Great Recession and real estate bust, but another developer bought the property out of foreclosure and is moving forward with the plan.

“Burroughs & Chapin came in hoping to expand their business model outside their local market, and obviously regret that decision now,” John Northen, a Chapel Hill bankruptcy lawyer representing the developers in the bankruptcy case, told the Triangle Business Journal in 2011. “It turned into a bad poster child for what should have been an amazing project.”

This time B&C isn’t starting the out-of-market project from scratch. Lumina Station has operated for nearly 20 years and has 49,820 square feet of retail including 13 shops such as Tickled Pink boutique and Island Passage fashion, six restaurants and cafes.

B&C declined to talk about its history in other markets and what makes this project different.

Chad Carlson, B&C’s senior vice president, said in a news release that B&C plans to build upon the vision of Lumina’s owner and developer Joel Tomaselli, who created “a property with a unique sense of place” and cultivated a strong and diverse merchandising mix, “which are key qualities we look for in potential acquisition targets.”

“Lumina Station is a first-class property located in an attractive Wilmington submarket, and Burroughs & Chapin is thrilled to be adding it to our retail portfolio,” Carlson said in the news release. Carlson also said that B&C will work with the tenants and the city of Wilmington “to build upon Joel’s vision by making incremental improvements that enhance the customer experience and improve the success of our retailers.”

B&C declined to give details on those improvements or its plans for the center.

Tomaselli said that he is confident B&C will carry on his vision.

“It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to pass Lumina Station on to Burroughs & Chapin, a company that has a strong track record of owning and managing exceptional retail properties like Lumina Station,” he said.

Contact DAWN BRYANT at 626-0296 or on Twitter @TSN_dawnbryant.

This story was originally published April 7, 2015 at 1:17 PM with the headline "B&C buys shopping center near Wilmington, N.C.."