Liberty University announced the purchase of Candlers Station shopping center for $16.3 million on Wednesday, an investment that Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. said sets the stage for future campus growth.
“Someday, when that center becomes no longer financially viable, it will be an excellent place for our campus to expand,” Falwell said during student convocation Wednesday morning.
For now, Candlers Station — a 270,000-square-foot property located adjacent to Liberty across Candlers Mountain Road — will remain a shopping center. Current tenants include Cinemark Movies 10, Staples and T.J. Maxx.
Circuit City, which filed for bankruptcy in 2008, shuttered its Candlers Station store in 2005 and the storefront has stayed largely empty since.
University officials are in talks with two prospective retailers to lease the 55,000 square feet of available space, which includes Circuit City and other vacancies.
Falwell said talks about acquiring the property began last spring, and the board of directors approved using endowment funds for the purchase in November. Falwell told students the deal with Developer’s Diversified Realty closed Wednesday.
According to Developer Diversified Realty’s list of properties, it acquired Candlers Station in 2003. The property list also says that DDR has a 15 percent ownership interest in the Ward’s Crossing shopping center.
DDR officials did not respond to a request to confirm the price of the sale to LU or that the transaction closed Wednesday.
Falwell’s father, the Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., had wanted to buy the Candlers Station property years ago but considered it too expensive, Falwell Jr. said. However, the recession provided “miraculous timing,” Falwell said on the school’s Web site.
Candlers Station is a healthy shopping center, Falwell said, and there are no immediate plans to change it.LU expects an 11 to 14 percent annual return on its investment.
The purchase is part of Liberty’s strategy of converting industrial or commercial spaces into campus facilities, Falwell said.
“When and if the tenants move on, then it will be much less expensive for us to renovate those building than to build new,” Falwell said of Candlers Station.
“That’s a strategy that’s worked for us over the years. We don’t have too much pride to take somebody’s old building and renovate it instead of building new.”
In 2004, the former Ericsson plant was donated to Thomas Road Baptist Church by Hobby Lobby, an Oklahoma City-based arts and crafts firm, and then leased to Liberty University on a 99-year lease for a nominal amount. That plant now serves as LU’s Campus North.
LU received the Plaza shopping center in Lynchburg as a gift in 2007. It also owns a commercial lot next to Candlers Station beside Applebee’s restaurant.
Staff writer Bryan Gentry contributed.
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