Real Estate

Retailers, developers attempt to turn shopping centers into gathering places with stores

Digital moves fast. Business people who disregard the devastating waves of changes it leaves will inevitably be engulfed by them. Consider this rising marketplace tsunami detected by Deloitte Consulting:

Park West Village

Location: Cary/Morrisville, North Carolina

Size: Approximately 750,000 sq. ft.

Owner: CASTO

Key tenants: Target, T.J. Maxx, Buy Buy Baby, Ross, PetSmart, Earth Fare, Chili’s, Travinia, Hallmark, Carter’s, Gander Mountain, Stone Theatres, Chico’s, White House Black Market, ULTA, Pier 1, Charming Charlie’s, Firebirds, Blackfinn Ameripub, LOFT, Starbucks

Between a partnership with Sonos and its expansion into the boutique hotel business, it’s been a busy couple of weeks for West Elm. And with it all, the home furnishings retailer continues to grow its core business.   West Elm will open its third store in Nevada, in Downtown Summerline, on Oct. 6. As part of the retailer’s Local program, eight Nevada-based makers and designers will sell their products with the store’s holiday assortment of modern furnishings and décor.  

New shopping center construction may be in a nationwide lull, but not in Tarrant County, Texas, where a developer is poised to break ground on a 90-acre parcel flanked by two other sizeable centers.   A partnership controlled by the De La Vega Group will begin building a mixed-use project called The Citadel across Interstate 35 from Alliance Town Center and adjoining the newly opened Presidio Town Center north of Fort Worth. Upon its completion, retail space will top 2 million sq. ft. in the submarket.  

The retailer opened 11 new stores in the U.S. and Canada for the quarter ending Aug. 1, 2016. This adds to the 12 new stores it opened in the first quarter, bringing the total for the year to 23.    PetSmart is on track to achieve its goal of 80 net new stores in 2016.   The new stores average around 14,000 sq. ft., with service offerings such as grooming and pet training.  

One of Minnesota’s highest-volume malls is about to get a $76 million renovation that will give it new retail space and sight lines and – more rare these days – a new department store tenant.   Rosedale Center, a 1.14-million-sq.-ft. property situated between the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, will soon break ground for a two-level Von Maur store and parking deck with 1,100 spaces, according to owner JLL. Macy’s and J.C. Penney already do business there.  

Construction is underway at a planned 185,000-sq.-ft. center that will bring a top-level roster of value retailers to the western Kentucky town of Hopkinsville. Thompson Thrift is the developer.   Hopkinsville Town Center, located just north of Clarksville on the Tennessee border, will count Hobby Lobby, TJ Maxx, Ross Dress for Less, Ulta, Burke’s Outlet, Hibbett Sporting Goods, and Rack Room Shoes among its tenants when it opens in late 2017 or early 2018.  

It houses one of the nation’s premier jazz performance centers, as well as Michelin-star restaurants, so New York’s Time Warner Center couldn’t have any old pop-up shops lining walkways with spectacular views of Central Park South.