Whole Foods plaza in Shrewsbury sold to NY firm for $57M

About four months after hitting the market, the Lakeway Commons plaza in Shrewsbury has been sold for $56.7 million to one of the largest asset management firms in the world.

New York-based Nuveen purchased the 90,035-square-foot shopping plaza anchored by a Whole Foods location on Friday, according to real estate data firm CoStar. The deed for the transaction has not yet been filed with the Worcester District Registry of Deeds as of Tuesday afternoon. 

Nuveen has $1.4 trillion in assets under management, according to its website. Already one of the largest firms of its kind, Nuveen announced in February plans for a $13.5-billion acquisition of London-based investment firm Schroders, potentially creating a firm with $2.5 trillion in assets under management, according to Morningstar.

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Nuveen is a subsidiary of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association-College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA).

Located at 193 Boston Turnpike, Lakeway Commons was sold by AEW Capital Management, a global real estate investment firm headquartered in Boston. The site last sold for $2 million in 2016, before construction of the plaza was completed in 2018 by Framingham-based Grossman Development Group.

Prior to Lakeway Commons, the site was the home of Spag’s discount department store from 1934 until 2004. 

The sale does not include nearby residential buildings developed around the same time as Lakeway Commons. 

The March listing for the plaza said it was 99% leased, with 75% of existing tenants having been at the site since its opening. A quarter of the site’s leases expire in the next two years, although Whole Foods had 12 years remaining on its lease as of February. 

Other tenants include Tavern in the Square restaurant, Rockland Trust, UniBank, and Starbucks.

Geoffrey Millerd, Robert Griffin, Jonathan Martin, Paul Penman, and Casey O’Brien of Boston-based Newmark served as the listing brokers for this transaction.

The plaza received a 2026 tax assessment of $24.92 million, with the land accounting for $10.69 million and site improvements accounting for $14.24 million, according to Town of Shrewsbury property records. 

Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the real estate and banking & finance industries.