Quick trigger: three veterans of shopping-center developer Edens are off to a fast start creating their own $1 billion urban retail portfolio.

• Author: Cranford, Steve
• Position: NC TREND: Money talk

For now, buying small chunks of trendy neighborhoods in Charlotte, Raleigh and other hot spots may be less involved than the deals Terry Brown and Jason Tompkins worked on during long careers at Columbia, S.C.-based developer Edens. But having raised $500 million, it's clear some big investors expect their Charlotte-based Asana Partners real-estate firm to make its mark.

Asana will leverage the money to buy up to $1.2 billion of retail property, but not the typical strip centers with big-box stores or suburban malls. Instead, the company is buying properties in strong urban markets that are less threatened by online retailers, says Sam Judd, chief investment officer. Think of a property with a gym, a clothing boutique and a restaurant that's flanked by neighborhoods that generate pedestrian traffic.

The concept is nothing new for Asana Chief Executive Officer Brown, Tompkins, who is chief operating officer, and Judd. They spent nearly a decade together at Edens. Joe Edens started the business in 1966 and focused on grocery-anchored centers for many years. Brown, 55, became CEO in 2002 and led an expansion that included hiring business graduates of Harvard and other top colleges, he told The New York Times in 2012. Tompkins, 46, was CFO for 11 years, while Judd, 40, spent nine years leading the company's Northeast region.

At their departure in 2015, Edens owned 136 retail centers totaling $6 billion in value. Recognizing an opportunity for a startup investment-management company with retail real-estate skills, they haven't wasted time. The 23-employee company has bought more than a dozen properties in the last year, including sites in Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Nashville and Austin, Texas, and Washington, D.C. Many properties lack institutional management, providing an opportunity for Asana to tweak the tenant mix and raise lease rates.

The template is similar to the Edens-owned Park Road Shopping Center, Charlotte's first open-air suburban retail development that opened in 1956 and is home to a funky mix of small shops and larger tenants. Charlotte attorney Porter Byrum had owned the center for 44 years until he donated it to Wake Forest, Wingate and Queens universities in 2011. (Byrum died in March at 96.) Edens paid $82 million for the property in 2012. Since then, the center has spruced up its signage and attracted new tenants including gourmet-burger chain Shake Shack, opening later this year.

Asana can duplicate that strategy because...