PMAT Acquires Shops Of Romeoville In Suburban Illinois For Long-Term Value

In December 2023, PMAT Companies acquired another value-add anchored Select Open Air Retail (SOAR) centre in suburban Illinois. The Shops of Romeoville, an 82,660-square-foot SOAR centre located in Romeoville, IL—a growing suburb of Chicago—boasts national credit tenants like TJ Maxx, Petco, and Discovery Clothing.

The property benefits from a strong existing tenant base and a fundamentally sound location at a market-dominant intersection shared with retailers such as Walmart, Aldi, and Blaine’s Farm & Fleet. It is also just one mile from a top-performing Jewel Osco. Additionally, the asset is shadow anchored by the Ovation Center—a partnership between Senior Services of Will County and the Village of Romeoville—delivering more than 125,000 square feet of health care services, business space, and a state-of-the-art event centre.

Despite these strong fundamentals and market momentum, this lender-owned property had significant remaining instability and legacy vacancy at only 65% occupancy with several month-to-month and short-term leases at the time of acquisition. Within months of closing, PMAT renewed existing anchor tenancy, executed a new long-term lease with Ross Dress for Less, and worked with the Village of Romeoville to structure incentives to attract the right tenant mix.

PMAT’s business plan involves reinvesting in the site in conjunction with the Village of Romeoville. The aim is to work with the remaining existing retailers to achieve long-term commitments to the market while bringing new tenants into the remaining vacancy. The execution of this intensive lease-up and management process—led by direct principal attention from PMAT ownership—updating and fully stabilising the property is PMAT’s proven strategy across the country.

PMAT remains active in the capital markets and seeks to acquire fundamentally sound but value-add SOAR shopping centres in suburban secondary and tertiary markets across the U.S. While their most typical deal size ranges from $10M to $100M, targeted transactions can range from $5M to more than $150M.

PMAT is a real estate development and investment platform focused on value-add SOAR investments across the Southeast, Sunbelt, and Midwest regions. The initial PMAT platform was founded by ICSC Trustee Bob Whelan in 2003. Since then, the team has acquired and renovated primarily grocery-anchored shopping centres in fundamentally sound suburban secondary and tertiary markets.

The PMAT Team has experienced over 100 transactions with a value of $1.5 billion consisting of nearly 12.5 million square feet across 17 states. PMAT's investment strategy is to acquire fundamentally sound but value-add SOAR assets anchored by grocery, off-price, necessity discount, and fitness tenants to create long-term value through redevelopment, renovation, and re-tenanting.