- Farhad Vladi Buys A Mall, Where He Has Shopped
By Andrew Macdonald
Hamburg-Halifax business leader, Farhad Vladi has purchased a retail mall on the South Shore.
He goes from being a customer at the mall to one of its owners, paying between $4-$5M to acquire the community mall.
Known as Chester Shore Mall, in the Village of Chester, its anchor tenants include a busy Sobeys Foodland, a pet store, and a spacious dollar store, which last year took over more space, and the Great Canadian Dollar Store now stocks frozen food, with refrigerators occupying a whole wall.
“We are long-term investors, not short-term, and we will look to see what we can do with the property. We will of course keep the property in good shape and do certain things here and there and maintain what is there,” Vladi tells The Macdonald Notebook.
Halifax-Hamburg business leader Farhad Vladi operates tourist map and antique maps store, Maps and More on Lower Water Street. He is shown in this picture with a Halifax map from 1880. (The Notebook).
According to Vladi, whose main business is selling and renting global islands via his firm, Vladi Private Islands – Prince William & Kate rented a Pacific island for their honeymoon from Vladi – the Foodland store has a lease to 2030, and there is only one vacancy in the mall, a 1,000-square foot pad.
Hamburg-Halifax business tycoon Farhad Vladi, seen with Lynda Flynn of Chester’s KIWI Cafe. Vladi owns the Kiwi Cafe building and says Flynn is in discussions to expand her popular cafe. (The Notebook photo).
Vladi also owns other retail properties in Chester. He is landlord to Engel and Volkers, buying that downtown Chester building in recent years from Tim Harris, Vladi also owns the retail property housing Kiwi Cafe, a long running popular coffee emporium.
Vladi also owns office buildings in Downtown Halifax, including a city block consisting of the former Royal Bank tower, and that city block also includes the Bluenose II Restaurant.
The Champlain Building, home to the Bluenose II Restaurant is a Class C office building. The building is on a downtown city block controlled by Farhad Vladi. The Notebook photo.
His equity partners with the Royal Bank block include Joe Ramia and the heirs to well heeled auto marker, Porsche.
Vladi has a home on Chester Peninsula, and also spends his time between Halifax and Hamburg. He also sells antique maps of the region, as well as modern day tour book guides at his Halifax Waterfront store, Maps & More.
He has been doing business in Nova Scotia since 1976, and then started the Canadian arm of Vladi Private Islands in Halifax in 1978.
He first arrived in NS to buy an island in the waters of Mahone Bay, putting him in touch with one of thje greats of South Shore real estate, Bob Douglas, now deceased. Douglas in his lifetime was one of my sources – I would never name a living source, but he is long deceased, so it is OK to name a deceased news source.
Vladi says he has no plans to expand the mall into a spacious parking lot, adding the large parking lot is one of the assets of the mall.
Vladi’s investors include Europeans, and he creates syndicates to buy NS land, which also includes acquiring sustainable forest tracts in the province.
Vladi fell in love with Chester upon his first visit in 1976, and says plans to twin the highway to Chester under the Houston government will add real estate value to the seaside village.
Vladi has chosen his Halifax property manager, Compass Commercial Realty to manage the Chester Shore Mall, a firm owned by Chris Andrea. Vladi calls the firm capable and he has a long working relationship with it.
The Agency real estate firm’s Jessica Burch worked on the deal. The mall was sold by Montreal interests, where heirs of the principal listed the property, along with 15 other malls in Canada.
Vladi only bought the Chester Shore Mall, which previously had been owned by Crombie REIT, before selling to the Montreal interests in the last five to ten years.
