Latino supermarket upsizes to 195K sf HQ in Santa Clarita

Vallarta Supermarkets will more than double the size of its corporate headquarters with a move from Los Angeles to Santa Clarita.

The Sylmar-based Latino market chain will move into a three-building, 195,300-square-foot campus at 28470-28490 Avenue Stanford, for which it paid $48 million, the San Fernando Business Journal reported. 

The family-owned chain will relocate later this year from its northeast San Fernando Valley HQ at 12881 Bradley Avenue. Its current Sylmar hub contains 89,100 square feet, according to Loopnet.

Its new Valencia Corporate Plaza headquarters is bordered by Advanced Bionics, filter manufacturer Donaldson, Southern California Edison and several other businesses and manufacturers in the Valencia Industrial Center.

The move north of the Newhall Pass will bring 220 executive and staff jobs to Santa Clarita, expected to generate approximately $100 million in annual economic output, including $750,000 in local city and county annual tax revenue, according to the Santa Clarita Valley Economic Development Corporation, which announced the move.

Other corporate headquarters in the city 33 miles northeast of Los Angeles include Sunkist, Princess Cruises and Logix Federal Credit Union.

Vallarta Supermarkets bought the office campus in January for $48 million, according to CoStar News. 

Broker Cesar Gonzales of Equity Union Commercial represented Vallarta Supermarkets. Brokers Craig Peters and Richard Ramirez of CBRE represented the undisclosed seller.

The Registry news site had a slightly different take. It reported that Vallarta Food Enterprises, parent company of Vallarta Foods, paid $48.9 million – or $339 per square foot – for a smaller 144,000-square-foot office campus. 

The seller was an entity linked to True North Real Estate Fund III, a fund managed by True North Management Group, based in White Plains, New York, according to TheRegistry.

The 24-year-old campus was previously listed in May 2021 for $40 million, or about $280 per square foot. 

True North bought the property through the real estate investment fund in 2015, according to public records, for $41.25 million. 

Vallarta Supermarkets, founded in Van Nuys by the late Enrique Gonzalez Sr. in 1985, has 53 locations across the state, including two in the Santa Clarita Valley, making it one of the largest Latino-owned supermarket chains in California, according to its website.

— Dana Bartholomew