Rancho San Miguel Market was a major selling point in the transaction of the Crossroad Shopping Center last year. Photo contributed

If you don’t live or work in or around Madera, there’s a good chance you’ve never heard of Rancho San Miguel Market.

But for many shoppers of Hispanic descent, along with those who aren’t but like to shop for a wide variety of Hispanic foods and ingredients in an upscale market akin to the Mexican-themed Vallarta Supermarkets to the south, it’s a big draw, bringing in not only neighborhood customers but others from miles away.

That was a big part of the reason the Madera grocery store and the other businesses comprising the 11.7-acre Crossroads Shopping Center were sold in a deal finalized in May 2019 for more than $18.2 million, said Mark Henry, senior vice president and principal with Colliers International real estate in Fresno.

He also brokered the sale, the largest single commercial real estate sale in Madera, Fresno, Tulare or Kings counties during 2019, according to The Business Journal’s list of Largest Commercial Real Estate Deals published in the Jan. 17 paper.

He said the buyers, whose identities he declined to disclose, plan to continue leasing spaces to tenant businesses, and were particularly impressed at the loyal customer base for the 57,587-square-foot Ranch San Miguel Market, the anchor store for the shopping center, which also includes a Little Caesars Pizza, a Family Dollar store and an H&R Block office, along with Taco Bell and McDonald’s restaurants on separate pads at Crossroads, located at the southeast corner of Yosemite Avenue and Elm Street.

Those shops, restaurants and other businesses occupy more than 97,541 square feet of leasable space.

“It went on the market probably in the first quarter of 2019, and we went under contract with the buyer about four weeks thereafter,” Henry said.

As for the reason for the sale, he said only that the owning partnership, Tozer Avenue, LLC, was looking to dissolve some assets of the partnership.

Part of the sale includes two undeveloped pads, so there’s room to expand within the shopping center, Henry said, adding that the buyers liked that the center was built in 2008, so it’s not too old.

The selling price for Crossroads outdistanced the price of the second highest-value commercial sale in the four counties last year by more than $5.9 million.

But that sale wasn’t actually a sale, but rather a more than $12.2 million long-term lease agreement for a warehouse in Southeast Fresno that hasn’t been built yet.

Construction on the nearly 203,000-square-foot building on South Northpointe Drive, across the street from the Amazon Fulfillment Center, began in October 2019 and is expected to be completed later this year, said Ethan Smith, a senior vice president for Newmark Pearson Commercial Realty’s Industrial Division. Smith also brokered the lease deal.

Like the Amazon facility and the Ulta Beauty Distribution Warehouse down the street, the new building also will be an e-commerce distribution center, said

Smith, adding that he couldn’t disclose further information on the business that will locate at the site.