Albertsons-anchored East El Paso shopping center Montwood Mall sold to developer Mimco

April 17, 2018

By Vic Kolenc / El Paso Times / Follow @vickolenc

Published 7:00 a.m. MT April 17, 2018

Mimco Inc., a large El Paso shopping center development company, has purchased Montwood Mall on the East Side.

The 178,000-square-foot strip center, located at Montwood and Yarbrough drives, is anchored by a recently remodeled Albertsons supermarket and the Premiere Cinema Montwood Movies 7 El Paso theater. It also has a Great American Steak Burger restaurant.

Mimco bought the center April 6 from the Noddle Cos., an Omaha, Neb.-based commercial real estate development and management company.

No sale price was disclosed, but the center was listed for sale at $14.9 million by Marcus & Millichap, a California-based commercial real estate investment services firm.

The center was appraised by the El Paso Central Appraisal District for tax purposes at $7.9 million.

Mimco has been buying shopping centers in San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, McAllen and Brownsville in the past few years, but this is the company’s first El Paso purchase in three years, said Bob Ayoub, Mimco’s chief public relations officer.

“We are always looking to expand our presence in El Paso. But not much is for sale in El Paso” because Mimco, River Oaks Properties and the Malooly brothers own most of El Paso’s shopping centers and don’t sell them, Ayoub said.

River Oaks, owned by Gerald Rubin, founder of El Paso consumers products company Helen of Troy, and Mimco, headed by Meyer Marcus, are El Paso’s largest developers of strip shopping centers.

Noddle officials were not immediately available Monday for comment about the sale.

“The (Montwood Mall) center has always done well. It has good demographics in the neighborhood, and good traffic,” Ayoub said. A new Circle K convenience store and gas station is being built across the street from the center, he noted.

Most of the center is leased, with “only about 5,000 to 8,000 square feet available,” Ayoub said.

The center also includes an Ace Hardware store, a Family Dollar and a Fallas discount clothing store.

The center was built in 1955, and has had several renovations over the years, according to a Marcus & Millichap sales brochure.

The center years ago was a minimall, with a large part of the center enclosed from the supermarket building to the movie theater building, said Alfredo Aguayo, maintenance manager at the center, where he has worked for 39 years. The only remaining enclosed portion is where the seven-screen movie theater is located.

The Montwood 7 movies theater was bought several years ago by Premiere Cinemas, a Big Spring, Texas, movie theater chain, which also operates a theater in Bassett Place.

Vic Kolenc may be reached at 546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; @vickolenc on Twitter.

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