Front and center. (Real Estate).

At $110 million, Burbank's Media City Center will sell at a substantial discount to fellow Tri-Cities retail centers Glendale Galleria and Paseo Colorado when it is sold by real estate investment trust Pan Pacific Retail Properties Inc. to Irvine-based Crown Realty & Development.

The 1.2-million-square-foot center will trade for about $110 a foot, far less than recent deals for Pasadena's Paseo ($278 a foot) and the Galleria ($657).

The center averaged $300 in sales per square foot in 2001, about 10 percent less than the nationwide average for indoor retail centers, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. A three-level mall surrounded by 450,000 square feet of big box retailers like IKEA (which is not included in the deal) and Office Depot, Media City Center is a classic turnaround investment, with about two-thirds of the ground floor either empty or with month-to-month tenants.

Vista-based Pan Pacific acquired Media City Center as part of its stock-for-stock purchase of Manhattan Beach REIT Center Trust Inc. valued at about $600 million. Center Trust bought the Magnolia Boulevard property in 1997 and had planned a multimillion-dollar remodel last year but the renovations never materialized.

"Pan Pacific's focus is on grocery-anchored shopping centers," said Reza Etedali, senior vice president at Newport Beach-based Sperry Van Ness representing Pan Pacific, who said the company received 19 offers on the property but declined to comment on specifics of the transaction. "It was a non-conforming asset."

Robert Flaxman, president and chief executive of Crown Realty, did not return calls seeking comment.

Staff reporter Danny King can be reached at [phone] ext. 230, or at [e-mail].