Redevelopment Coup

WinCo Foods has agreed to develop an 85,000-sq.-ft. modern grocery store at Old Orchard Village East in Lewisville, Texas.



WinCo Foods, founded in Idaho in 1967, is an employee-owned discount grocery that operates 87 stores and plans to expand into Dallas-Fort Worth metro region with 15 new stores over the next several years.



The deal will take the Old Orchard Village East center from 60% leased to 100% leased and make it possible to carry out a $20 million transformational redevelopment.



The Weitzman Group, which leases the center, Cencor Realty Services, which manages the center and will carry out the redevelopment, together with the City of Lewisville hammered out the agreement with WinCo and other center retailers over a period of two years.



“It’s one of the most complicated deals I’ve ever seen,” said Herb Weitzman, chairman and CEO of The Weitzman Group and Cencor Realty.



The deal will reduce WinCo’s business personal property tax by 50% and provide Cencor Realty with a 75% tax abatement in property taxes.



Negotiations covered the tax incentives ass well as deals with Tuesday Morning and Hancock Fabrics, who will relocate from the existing 100,000-sq.-ft. anchor space to make way for WinCo.



Other components of the deal involved renegotiating leases with other existing retailers. Leather Sofa, for instance, will downsize by eliminating a portion of its location. Negotiations also managed to resolve environmental issues connected to a neighboring property.



The redevelopment will demolish the existing anchor structure, replacing it with WinCo’s 85,000-sq.-ft. grocery store. In addition, the redevelopment will renovate and upgrade tenant signage and parking lots and provide new pylon signage and landscaping.



The existing center has some historical interest worth noting. Herb Weitzman led the original leasing effort for the center back in the 1970s. That effort brought in Kroger and one of the first Wal-Mart stores in the metro area as anchors for the center.



Wal-Mart left several years ago, relocating to a larger building. A 55,000-sq.-ft. Hobby Lobby, Tuesday Morning and Hancock Fabrics split up Wal-Mart’s former space, setting the stage for the next phase in the life of Old Orchard Village East: an extreme makeover.

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