Trumbull-based Woodgreen Management has sold School Street Square in East Hartford for $19.2 million, marking the firm’s third retail property sale in as many years.

“It’s based on market conditions. Right now real estate is going for a premium,” said Allan Bernheimer, president of Woodgreen Management. “We felt it was a good time to cash out.”

A 62,000-square-foot Big Y Supermarket anchors the 150,000-square-foot property at 265 Ellington Road, which sold Feb. 4 to an investment group based in Brooklyn, N.Y., operating under the name School Street Plaza LLC. The deal was detailed in records collected this week by The Warren Group, parent company of The Commercial Record.

With a portfolio of more than a dozen retail and office properties, Woodgreen Management has been doing more selling than buying lately. Other sales in the past couple of years include Fox Run Mall in Glastonbury and Hamden Village Fair in Hamden.

“People are looking for diversity in their investments,” Bernheimer said. “People are moving out of the stock market. There’s been a tremendous demand out of New York City for properties – especially grocery-anchored shopping centers. They are definitely a major investment vehicle for many of those individuals.”

That demand has been particularly strong during the past five years, he added.

“The last two shopping centers that we bought were [School Street Square] and the Hamden one, which was bought in 2000,” Bernheimer said. “Since that time, we have not been able to find shopping centers that meet our specs. We try to develop them and improve them, and make them more valuable, and eventually sell them.”

Woodgreen Management purchased School Street Square for $16.1 million in 2000, according to records from The Warren Group.

Michael Richetelli, president of Orange-based Colonial Properties, agreed that investor money is out there.

“There is still money that is chasing retail investment properties, provided that they’re stabilized,” he said. That means having a property with long-term tenants with good credit, he added.

“The issue is that there’s just not a lot of supply right now. There’s still a demand but there’s not a supply,” Richetelli said. “Sellers do not have an incentive to sell right now. One reason is the instability of Wall Street. If they were to sell and cash out, they have limited options as to where they can put their money.”

For now, property owners are content collecting the income from tenants, he said.

As for retail leasing, “I think the level of activity is still fairly strong, and I think one of the reasons is because there’s a lot more vacancy,” Richetelli said. “There’s more product, so people like ourselves, who have the space listed, are out there and have to be a little more aggressive in seeking out tenants.”

His firm recently brokered three retail deals along Boston Post Road in Orange, including 6,376 square feet of space to Floor Décor, a floor covering company; 3,500 square feet of space to Educational Works, which specializes in educational materials and toys; and a Dunkin’ Donuts shop.

One growing retail trend Bernheimer noted is the presence of medical practices in a retail setting.

“There are some storefront clinics [in School Street Square] affiliated with Hartford Hospital that provide medical services from a less traditional area – out of a storefront,” Bernheimer said. “I believe you’re going to see more of a move toward medical uses.”

Richard Guralnick, senior commercial broker and Certified Commercial Investment Member with North Haven-based H. Pearce Commercial Real Estate, is seeing more medical uses work their way into retail. But there are pitfalls, he said.

“My experience with medical [space] is that it cuts both ways. If the complex is large enough, and [School Street Square] is large enough, a portion can be medical,” he said. “The problem you have is when the complex is too small, and a disproportionate size of it is medical. Medical is not a real traffic generator – not like another retailer would be.”

Because of that, too much medical use in a given retail center can frustrate the other retail tenants, Guralnick added. Investors, however, see the upside in having a medical tenant in a retail center, he said.

“As an investor, I wouldn’t mind seeing some medical because they’re a very stable tenant,” Guralnick said. “You know you’re going to get your checks on the first of the month.”