Retail center in America's top-ranked small city secures $51M sale & $33.15M financing

CHICAGO, Aug. 4, 2026 –  JLL Capital Markets announced today that it has secured the $51 million sale and $33.15 million acquisition financing for Merchants Square, a 233,727-square-foot shadow-grocery anchored retail center in Carmel, Indiana.

JLL represented the seller, Big V Property Group. JLL also worked on behalf of the borrower, Marquee Capital, in arranging the loan through Bank of America Corporation.

Merchants Square is strategically positioned at 2140 E. 116th St., at one of Carmel's busiest intersections with Keystone Parkway, generating approximately 71,000 vehicles per day. The center attracts more than three million annual visitors and sits at the heart of one of the wealthiest communities in the Indianapolis metropolitan area, with average household incomes exceeding $189,000 within a five-mile radius.

Carmel is consistently ranked among the best places to live in America. WalletHub named it the No. 1 best small city in America, while U.S. News & World Report ranked it the No. 2 best place to live in the United States. The city has experienced 20% population growth in the past 15 years, with more than 4,000 housing units currently in the development pipeline.

The retail center was originally built between 1974 and 2001 across five buildings on 21.25 acres. Merchants Square features a unique tenant mix anchored by Flix Brewhouse, a 40,788-square-foot cinema brewery concept, that includes the top-performing theater within a three-mile radius.

The property benefits from its shadow-grocery anchor positioning adjacent to Harvest Market, an 80,000-square-foot premium grocer that opened in May 2024 and has driven significant additional foot traffic to the center. The tenant roster also includes World Market, which ranks as the top location in Indiana and in the top 4% nationally, along with Planet Fitness, Dollar Tree, Petco and Aveda Fredric's Institute.

Merchants Square boasts 97% occupancy with strong leasing momentum, having signed 40,095 square feet across 10 leases since 2023. The property features approximately 70% national tenancy by gross leasable area and income, with in-place rents approximately 20% below current market rates, presenting significant mark-to-market opportunity.

JLL Capital Market’s Investment Sales and Advisory team was led by Manging Director Michael Nieder and Director Brian Page. Managing Director Christopher Knight and Director Matt Maksymec arranged the financing.

"Merchants Square represents an exceptional retail asset in one of the Midwest's most dynamic growth markets," Nieder said. "The property's strong occupancy, diverse tenant mix featuring experiential concepts like Flix Brewhouse and significant mark-to-market rent opportunity in a market with only 1% retail vacancy made this an attractive opportunity."

JLL Capital Markets is a full-service global provider of capital solutions for real estate investors and occupiers. The group’s in-depth local market and global investor knowledge delivers the best-in-class solutions for clients, including investment sales and advisory, debt advisory, M&A and corporate finance, loan sales, equity & fund placement, net lease, derivative advisory and energy & infrastructure advisory. JLL Capital Markets has more than 3,000 specialists worldwide with offices in nearly 50 countries.

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JLL (NYSE:JLL) is a leading global commercial real estate services and investment management company with annual revenue of $26.1 billion, operations in over 80 countries and a global workforce of more than 112,000 as of June 30, 2026. For over 200 years, clients have trusted JLL, a Fortune 500® company, to help them confidently buy, build, occupy, manage and invest across a variety of industries and property types, including office, industrial, hotel, multi-family, retail and data center properties. Driven by our purpose to shape the future of real estate for a better world, we help our clients, people and communities SEE A BRIGHTER WAY. Powered by rich global datasets and leading technology capabilities, we provide coordinated, end-to-end delivery of real estate services for a broad range of global clients who represent a wide variety of industries. Through LaSalle Investment Management, we invest for clients on a global basis in both private assets and publicly traded real estate securities. For further information, visit jll.com.

Big V Property Group is a family-owned retail real estate company with an 80-year history of owning, operating and developing premier shopping centers across 14 Sunbelt states. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based firm manages more than 50 neighborhood and community shopping centers totaling 9.5 million square feet in high-growth demographic markets. Big V maintains major offices in Murfreesboro, Tennessee; San Antonio and Austin, Texas; and Florida, New York.

Marquee Capital, formerly Berengaria Development, is a private real estate investment and asset management company that manages more than 2.5 million square feet of retail space and 650 senior housing units. Since its founding in 2008 as the real estate arm of Marcus Investments, the company has completed transactions exceeding $800 million and currently oversees a portfolio with assets under management valued at more than $400 million. The company specializes in retail development, senior housing and opportunistic investment partnerships throughout the United States.