DLC to extend its expansion spree with new capital

DLC Management Corp., which just two weeks ago bought four centers for $100 million, is not stopping there.

The Elmsford, N.Y.-based owner-operator of 70-plus open-air centers stretching from the Northeast down through Texas, has obtained a commitment for growth capital from Temerity Strategic Partners that it intends to use to double the size of its portfolio within the next three years.

“We are all-in on playing offense,” said DLC founder and CEO Adam Ifshin. “We know from every cycle we’ve weathered in the 32 years since I started DLC that the best time to buy is at the bottom, when the market is coming through a period of significant disruption.”

“That’s why we’ve proactively raised this capital now, to enable us to grow our assets by $2 billion and lean into what we believe will be an outstanding vintage of acquisitions,” Ifshin added.

 DLC deepened its stake in the open-air sector in the post-pandemic era.

“I am drawn to conclude that open-air is the chief piston in the [retail real estate] engine,” he wrote in Chain Store Age in 2022. “In Austin, we acquired a shopping center on March 30 and we signed an anchor lease the very next day.  Some top fitness brands succumbed at the start of the pandemic and filed for Chapter 11. Yet in the last few months we signed multiple leases with Planet Fitness, and have additional leases pending with Planet, Crunch, and LA Fitness.”

A year ago, DLC took on a head of acquisitions, Aaron Wu, who had spent the previous eight years buying grocery-anchored centers for AmCap, a billion-dollar retail real estate investment group. In his first five months at DLC he directed $130 million-dollars-worth of acquisitions.

Temerity Strategic CEO Bruce Cohen noted that open-air centers had long been ignored by institutional capital lenders, a situation that he said is now changing.

“Open-air retail has proven resilient, and we believe investment dollars will start to rotate back into the space,” Cohen said. “DLC has attracted a robust stable of sophisticated institutional capital and we hope that our capital, relationships and resources will help it take advantage of this opportunity.”