The Times Square Shopping Center at the southwest corner of Shaw and Marks avenues in Fresno has sold for $16.25 million. Photo via Red Architects

A North Valley father-son duo hope to turn around a neglected Fresno shopping center with a significant remodel and visible ownership.

Brian Dole, along with his father, Marvin Dole, closed escrow on Times Square Shopping Center at the southwest corner of Shaw and Marks avenues Thursday for $16.25 million.

Brett Visintainer with the Visintainer Group as well as Michael Arfsten and Michael Kennedy of Retail California represented both the buyer — Vintage Properties — and the seller.

 

The 152,000-square foot center is anchored by Ross Dress for Less and has high-profile restaurants Chuck-E-Cheese, Sizzler, Curry Pizza Co. and most recently Triangle Burger. The former owner purchased the center around 2006. Following the Great Recession, vacancy rates at the center increased to nearly 40% and never fully recovered, according to Arfsten. More recently, Big Lots — the center’s other anchor, left the location and moved down the street into the former Toys-R-Us building, leaving a nearly 30,000-square-foot space vacant since 2018.

While surrounding shopping centers were updated through the years, Times Square was one that “got lost in the shuffle,” Arfsten said. Times Square Holdings LLC formerly owned the center.

For the Doles, however, Times Square fit exactly what they were looking for.
“We typically look for higher vacancy but very promising due to location,” said Brian. “This hits it at the bull’s-eye.”

This is the third retail center for Vintage Properties and their first in Fresno. The Doles have shopping centers in Modesto and Escalon.

The priority for the Doles is to increase foot traffic. They want to start with capital investment. Over the next 12-18 months, Brian said he plans on investing between $1 million to $2 million, replacing monument signage, the clock tower as well as facades and the parking lot. He said for the first couple years, all of the income from the property will go toward renovation. They don’t expect to see any return for at least three years, Brian said.

“We really care about it,” he said. “We want [our tenants] to be successful, we’re only successful if they’re successful.”

Brian also owns a salon studio called Luxx Labs he’s putting in an 8,000 square foot space at the west end of Times Square. The site will have 39 booths stylists can rent. Brian said it should bring “significant activity to the side with the highest vacancy.”

Despite having between 60,000 – 80,000 square feet of vacancy, Marvin says the tenant profile is stable, with Union Bank as well as Sizzler occupying stand-alone spaces.

Brian represents three generations in real estate and Is a certified public accountant. Marvin’s original career was in heavy machinery, selling tractors in Liberia as well as Northern California. He then married into a real estate family.

Brian convinced his family to get into the retail side of real estate after focusing on housing. The duo also own the Casa del Sol and Casa de Luna apartment complexes in Fresno.

They contracted with San Mar Properties to manage the center as Marvin said he likes how present they are.

They said they plan to visit regularly, driving down from their home in Modesto.

“I have this mindset that if we breathe a lot of value into these things, we work with these people, we show them that we care, we’re extremely responsive, we’re extremely generous with the lease rates and the TI [tenant improvement] allowances, maybe we don’t make a lot of money on each individual lease, but we can make money off of the occupancy,” Brian said.