Bridge 33 Buys Belmar Shopping District

At last, some really great news for Belmar!

Seattle-based firm Bridge 33 has bought the shopping district portion of the development, which had entered foreclosure under the management of Starwood Capitol. Starwood reportedly will maintain control of Belmar's rental apartments. 

Starwood's tenure owning Belmar was fairly disastrous, coinciding with the worst of the coronavirus pandemic (see my posts here and here). But Starwood also never really understood what Belmar was (not another mall, but Lakewood's long promised downtown). The final nail in the coffin was Starwood's inability to maintain Belmar's commercial district, which had begun to look run down even before the pnademic. 

Part of problem was that Starwood was simply too big, and Belmar was lost in their massive real estate portfolio. This will be the opposite with Bridge 33: Bought for $113 million, Belmar will be the largest, highest-profile property in their portfolio. 

Of course, the proof's in the pudding, but so far, Bridge 33's Jack Hechinger (Vice-President of Acquisitions) has been very active in the Belmar community, reading out to neighborhood and business associations. In particular, he's promised a big investment to fix up the property (including the Belmar Plaza) and get new, class A tenants into vacant storefronts.

I don't know if anyone from Bridge 33 reads this blog, but I'll be posting some of my suggestions soon for what I'd like to see happen at Belmar.