Real estate advisory Hanley Investment Group has brokered the sale of a newly constructed property occupied by a Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers Drive-Thru restaurant in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The sale was for an absolute triple-net 15-year ground lease and was the first Raising Cane’s Drive-Thru to open and sell as a leased investment in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

Hanley Investment Group Executive Vice Presidents Bill Asher, Jeff Lefko and Jeremy McChesney, in association with ParaSell, Inc., represented the seller and developer, TradeCor, LLC, Plano, Texas. The buyer, a private investor from Los Angeles, was represented by Greg Swedelson and Jon-Eric Greene of SSG Realty Partners, a full service commercial real estate investment advisory firm, specializing in buyer representation and investments, with offices in Los Angeles, California, Park City, Utah and Honolulu, Hawaii.

We generated multiple competitive offers and procured an all-cash exchange buyer from Southern California

Asher says: “We generated multiple competitive offers and procured an all-cash exchange buyer from Southern California, implementing a pre-sale marketing strategy and securing the buyer while the property was under construction and closed escrow after Raising Cane’s opened for business.

“Raising Cane’s inaugural store to enter the Albuquerque market had a record opening and was a testament to the outstanding location and the highly successful national brand Raising Cane’s, which continues to grow nationally.”

The property is located on a 1.25-acre pad adjacent to an Albertsons-anchored shopping center at 4800 Montgomery Boulevard NE, near the corner of Montgomery and San Mateo (84,000 cars per day). The 3,331-square-foot freestanding restaurant serves its customers through its mobile app, takeout, dine-in options and two drive-thru lanes.

Its location a mile to the east of Interstate 25 (which carries 201,000 vehicles daily) connects the property to downtown Albuquerque and Albuquerque International Sunport airport. Surrounding tenants include AutoZone, Burlington, Chick-fil-A, CVS Pharmacy, Dollar Tree, Domino’s Jiffy Lube, Popeyes, Ross Dress for Less, Starbucks, Verizon and Walgreens.

There are 205,361 employees within a five-mile radius of Raising Cane’s. The property is also located across from Lovelace Women’s Hospital (120 beds, 744 employees) and Del Norte High School (1,300 students).

Albuquerque is located in the center of the New Mexico Technology Corridor, a cluster of high-tech institutions in the area, which includes Intel’s Fab 11X and a Facebook Data Center, in addition to being the founding location of MITS and Microsoft.  

Raising Cane’s is one of the fastest-growing quick-service chains in the U.S. In 2022, the company announced plans to open 100 stores in 2022 and 100 in 2023. Raising Cane’s opened its second Albuquerque location at 2004 Wyoming Boulevard NE on June 6, bringing Raising Cane’s New Mexico locations to three. Previously, Raising Cane’s opened a restaurant in Las Cruces in 2018 and is estimated to have more than 675 restaurants.

“Single-tenant QSR drive-thrus leased to national corporate tenants continue to experience the highest demand from net leased investors in today’s market,” says Asher. “Although there is an increased supply of product for sale on the market, there is a lack of high-quality single-tenant net-leased assets to choose from. Therefore, buyers are still willing to pay a premium for well-located, corporate-leased retail investments.”

In the past 36 months, Hanley Investment has completed the sale of 412 single-tenant net-lease retail properties valued at US $1.6 billion including Chipotle, Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Whataburger, Panera Bread and Starbucks.