San Jose – The location of the Walgreens store near downtown San Jose – one of the few drug stores in the vicinity – was purchased by a Southern California real estate company.
The buyer is a subsidiary controlled by Elliott Megdal & Associates, a Los Angeles-area real estate investment and development firm, and the documents were filed March 4 with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office.
The subsidiary paid $6.2 million for the drug, which consists of a Walgreens drugstore at 780 E. Santa Clara Boulevard in San Jose, according to county records.
County ownership documents link the buyer to Beverly Hills-based Elliot Megdal & Associates, whose business records show it is involved in real estate development and investment, with experience in retail real estate.
Public documents show that the seller was a subsidiary controlled by the property management of Illinois-based Walgreens.
The property database shows that the drug store’s building area is approximately 15,200 square feet. The property’s total, including an adjacent parking lot, totals 1.24 acres, or 54,000 square feet.
This means that the vast majority of the property is an undeveloped surface car park.
The property is located on East Santa Clara Street and extends from South 16th Street to South 17th Street.
The newly purchased parcel is located between the future locations of the two BART stations. One station is scheduled to operate near the corner of North 28th Street and East Santa Clara Street and the other will open at the intersection of First Street and Santa Clara Street.
This month’s purchase price of $6.2 million is about 7% lower than the estimated value of the $6.7 million property that the county resident’s office published in mid-2021.
Elliot Megdal & Associates, which now owns the 780 E.
However, Elliot Megdal & Associates has purchased small retail properties in the Atwater Village area of Los Angeles and the Ventura County town of Oxnard, according to press releases from real estate brokers. Megdal stated at the time of purchase in 2016 that it intended to redevelop Oxnard.
In November 2021, Elliot Megdal & Associates offered for sale a small retail building it owns in downtown Los Angeles. It was not immediately known if this property was sold at a later time.
In recent years, downtown San Jose has been hit by the closure of the Walgreens store on South First Street and West Santa Clara Street in 2018 and the closure of a small-size Safeway store at 100 S. Second St.
The two closures meant Walgreens in East Santa Clara and North 17th Street became the area’s only major drugstore.
Whole Foods operates a busy grocery store on the western edges of downtown San Jose at 777 Alameda.
Walgreens also operates a drug store at 1399 W San Carlos St. Close to Meridian Avenue in the Midtown area of the city.
