The owners of the Rancho Las Palmas Shopping Center in Rancho Mirage just got $30 million from CIT Bank to refinance the plaza, located at Highway 111 and Bob Hope Drive.
The new five-year, floating-rate debt retires the previous financing on the shopping center, a joint venture between DRA Advisors and Paragon Commercial Group, according to Commercial Observer. The center is currently anchored by a CVS Pharmacy, a Stein Mart and a Hobby Lobby and has seen plenty of redevelopment over the last few years.
Redeveloped by Paragon in 2016, the 163,500-square-foot shopping center — located at 42-540 Bob Hope Drive, at the intersection of Highway 111 in Coachella Valley — is 85 percent leased and can house up to 35 tenants, sources told CO. Prior to the 1970s and 80s, when it was transformed into a commercial center to service the Coachella Valley, the site had played host to an airstrip. DRA Advisors has owned and operated the asset since 2017, sources said, and Maggie Montez of Lee & Associates handles leasing, according to DRA’s website.
Prior to Paragon’s redevelopment of the center, it did not have access points from Highway 111 — only along Bob Hope Drive — which kept the site somewhat hidden and created an issue around access. Paragon fixed that and also added new public plazas, outside patios for some of the retail tenants, “drought-tolerant” landscaping and charging stations for electric vehicles, according to comments made in 2015 by Erwin Bucy, the founder and principal of Paragon.
Of course, revenue from an In-N-Out Burger would have gone a long way to helping the center’s owners pay back their debt, but we all know how that went down by now.
