CVS site on Las Vegas Strip available at steep price

A view of the CVS Pharmacy in Sky Las Vegas tower, 2700 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. The pharmacy has been listed for sale.

In the latest effort to make millions from the Strip’s lucrative drugstore sector, a CVS has hit the market with a big price tag.

Capital Square Realty Advisors is trying to sell its CVS-occupied retail property at the base of Sky Las Vegas, a north Strip condo tower, for $42 million.

That’s a 26 percent markup from the investment firm’s nearly $33.3 million purchase in spring 2014, county records show.

Listing brokers with CBRE Group sent out marketing materials for the sales effort on Thursday.

CVS on Strip Listed For Sale

Pedestrians pass by the CVS Pharmacy in Sky Las Vegas tower, 2700 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. Launch slideshow »

It’s yet another move to cash in on a growing slice of commerce in the famed casino corridor. Drugstore chains Walgreens and CVS have been opening more stores on tourist-packed Las Vegas Boulevard, as they make big money there selling medicine, food, booze and Vegas-themed souvenirs, including flasks and shot glasses.

They also pay big rents for space on the Strip, and landlords have sold the properties for hefty amounts.

CVS, for instance, plans to open a store in front of Bally’s — now under construction — in May, and it opened an outpost last year in the new three-story mall at Treasure Island.

Investors also sold a Walgreens property on the north Strip in October for $37 million, or $2,310 per square foot. That was up 33 percent from what they paid in 2012.

Almost two years ago, county records show, Virginia-based Capital Square paid $2,314 per square foot for its roughly 14,380-square-foot CVS store. It’s now aiming to sell the property for $2,921 per square foot.

Real estate on the Strip is far more expensive than in Las Vegas’ residential areas, and drugstores are no exception. A Walgreens property on Tropicana Avenue almost five miles east of the Strip, for instance, sold last August for about $7.5 million, or just $500 per square foot.

Efforts to speak with Capital Square executives about the listing were unsuccessful Thursday. But through a public relations representative, founder and CEO Louis Rogers said it’s the “optimal time” to sell because buyers would want the “cash flow” from a steady, reliable tenant such as CVS.

According to marketing materials from CBRE, the drugstore has a nearly 22-year lease at Sky Las Vegas, 2700 Las Vegas Blvd. South, that expires in spring 2029. It has four five-year extension options, as well.

Its rent next year is scheduled to be $2.26 million, the materials say.

Rogers’ sales effort, meanwhile, follows another investment at the 45-story, 409-unit luxury high-rise.

In September, San Diego-based Pathfinder Partners bought 64 residential units from Sky Las Vegas’ original developers for about $18.1 million cash. The firm scooped up the remaining condos that never sold after the tower opened in 2007, just as the economy was about to implode.

After the sale closed, Pathfinder co-founder Lorne Polger said his newly acquired units were being rented, and that as their leases expired, his group would renovate them. He said he wanted to sell the homes in phases, most likely starting this year.

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