ROCKLAND, Mass. -- Charlie Fitzgibbons, president of Tedeschi Food Shops Inc., has announced the promotion of Joe Hamza to vice president of sales and marketing.
Joe will be responsible and oversee all facets of sales, marketing, merchandising and advertising for all Tedeschi Food Shop, Li'l Peach and Store 24 locations.
Most recently, Hamza was director of marketing. He brings 15 years of knowledge and expertise to this position.
In other company news, Tedeschi Realty Corp. has sold 25 shopping centers, [image-nocss] most in the Greater Boston area to Dividend Capital Total Realty Trust, Denver, for $377 million, in the largest transaction of its type in Massachusetts history.
The Tedeschi family will continue to operate and franchise 200 convenience stores in the area, but it packaged and sold its strip retail centers, said The Boston Globe, taking advantage of the enormous run-up in the values of commercial property.
Tedeschi Realty closed on the sale of 22 of the 25 properties last week, and three more sales will be completed soon, the company said.
The portfolio includes shopping centers primarily located in southeastern Massachusetts, between Braintree and Orleans on Cape Cod. Among those being sold are Tedeschi Plaza in Braintree, Kingsbury Square in Kingston, Skaket Corners Plaza in Orleans, and Cranberry Plaza in Wareham. Other locations include Weymouth, New Bedford, Rockland, Hyannis, Harwich, Brockton, Cranston, R.I., and Meriden, Conn.
"The timing was great," Terrence Tedeschi, president of Tedeschi Realty and son of the founder of the food and real estate company, told the newspaper. "Interest rates have been low; valuations have been very high; and the portfolio was in good shape.
The majority of the centers sold are anchored by a supermarket, in most cases Super Stop & Shop, but also Shaw's, said the report.
Ralph Tedeschi started the company in 1946, opening seven Tedeschi Supermarkets, then sold to Stop & Shop in 1961. A couple of years later, he and other family members founded Angelo's Supermarkets in Plymouth and Barnstable counties, growing the chain to 18, and selling them in 1986.
The company bought a chain of c-stores in 1972, turned them into Tedeschi Shops, and after buying L'il Peach and Store 24 shops grew to own about 200 stores.
Tedeschi Realty is selling almost all of the shopping center properties, but another division of the family company will continue to operate the c-stores. "Nothing relating to the food business has been sold or is for sale," said Terry Tedeschi.
About 10 members of the Tedeschi family are still involved in running aspects of the real estate or food businesses. Tedeschi, 48, who has been president of the realty company for nine years, said he would take some time off and then "get back into it in a couple of years."
Dividend Capital is a private real estate investment trust that, before this transaction, had about 10 million square feet of office, retail, and industrial property in 18 states, the report said.
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