Oklahoma Factory Shoppes - I40 & Council

[stlokc]

To follow up on y_h's post,
I concur that St. Louis Mills has been a big disappointment. Part of the problem is its location. It was built a long way from where the affluent population center of St. Louis is. It had a few cool stores at the beginning, but it also had a lot of junk from the beginning. People didn't want to drive 20-30 minutes to shop at a few good stores, when you have to navigate through acres of ordinary stuff. The two or three times I was there, it felt like I wandered and wandered and wandered to find any store I wanted to patronize.

But also it has a lot of competition in St. Louis. When you have malls here with Nieman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom and dozens of smaller brand-name stores, who is going to go out of their way for a few good outlets? Also, not to be politically incorrect, but because of its location, it began to attract a miscreant crowd. In fact, they recently had to implement a curfew at that mall, children under 18 aren't allowed in there by themselves at night. There have been several fights there.

This mall in OKC sounds very exciting. And because it wouldn't have as much competition and the traffic isn't as bad, it should do better than the one in St. Louis. Although I-40 and Council is kind of in the sticks, being right on the highway should help it out a lot. Still, my fear is that this is one of how many attempts currently underway to up the retail ante in OKC? If good power centers are built on I-35 in Edmond, north of Quail Springs, University Park in Norman, this one on Council...are we diluting the audience a bit? Can all of these places make it? Would we be better off choosing two - say Quail Springs and Norman and concentrating the high quality retail there, so there is a little density of purpose? I'm not a retail expert, just random thoughts... Of course all of this could be concentrated downtown, but that's not exactly the business model for these types of places.

[mranderson]

Exactly, Karried. Besides, I never cared what a getner was. How does that pertain to the discussion anyway, Anderson? How is arguing over stupid words constructive in any way, especially when argued in an outlet mall development thread?

Re-read the posts I have made in this thread. The pertainace is obvious.

[SpectralMourning]

No, you interrupted and were answered. You were then allowed to be baited into a fit when you could've easily accepted the answer you were given. This business is nonsense, so let's go back to talking about development.

Are they going to tie this outlet mall into the Westgate center? Does anyone know what the outparcels will be in front of the Home Depot?

[fromdust]

do you think it will hurt or kill the other shopping centers? quail, penn etc..

[stlokc]

I don't think it will destroy the other traditional malls. Almost all of the outlet stores will be unique to OKC and there will always be a market for the traditional Gaps, Abercrombies, Limiteds, etc. The enclosed malls will survive. What I worry about are the other new ventures that are also supposed to be bringing "new" concepts to OKC. Are there enough "new" chains to fill this outlet, and the other 3 or 4?

I would hope that these other centers will attract some of what we don't see in an outlet mall: Crate and Barrell, REI, Whole Foods, World Market.

I'm thinking as I write but I guess if it is all executed well, it will all be OK. I just hope that we don't wind up with three or four ordinary centers instead of one or two really good ones.

(I know I have a tendency to ramble and get off message. Sorry about that)

[brianinok]

I think if you look at the Oklahoma City market compared to others of similar size, you will find that we are vastly underserved in retail. We have one good mall (Penn Square), 2 okay malls (Sooner, Quail Springs), a bad mall (Crossroads), and 2 small upscale/good shopping centers (Nichols Hills, Spring Creek). Other than that, we have some power centers. It is next to impossible to find parking spots at the decent malls on typical weekends. I even find myself not going to the mall even though I need to because of the crowd. You know what I ended up doing the last time? I just bought what I had put off buying in OKC when I went to Dallas with some friends. OKC can support plenty more shopping options, IMO.

[stlokc]

BrianinOKC,
I'm sure you're right. It's been a while since I lived in OKC full time and the town has gotten wealthier and bigger since I left.

I'll be watching from afar and hope that all of the new developments are successful. OKC is ready to take the leap to the level of retail that exists in bigger cities. I just hope that it isn't overbuilt, because OKC does sometimes have that tendency. Still, all these places wouldn't be getting financing if some very smart people didn't think they would work. It will be fun to watch.

[metro]

stlokc Although I-40 and Council is kind of in the sticks,

Not really, it is in the core of the city, the old city, and this I-40 corridor is quickly becoming a retail hub with the huge 1 million sq. ft. plus Westgate Marketplace from MacArthur to Rockwell and the huge development that is also ongoing in Yukon at Garth Brooks Blvd. Not to mention as others have said, its the first thing travelers coming from the West (i.e. Amarillo, Albuquerque, Phoenix) will see as a destination. It's very close to the airport corridor and downtown as well. I see no problem with this area. As brianok has said, this is an underserved market.

[okclee]

The proximity to the Kilpatrick connection as well, makes the I-40 and Council and ideal spot for a huge retail project like this. The Kilpatrick outer loop will continue to grow and grow in numbers of residential and I am sure that the developer of this project is banking on these numbers of future rooftops.

[Pete]

Looks like somebody reads this board:

***************
Developers are planning outlet mall west of city
By Richard Mize
Real Estate Editor
Local developers are working with Rosemont, Ill.-based investors to develop a factory outlet center on Interstate 40 in far west Oklahoma City.

Terryl Zerby of Zerby Interests and other investors who bought the former Lucent Technologies plant at 7725 W Reno also own the property envisioned as an outlet mall, which is south of the former Lucent property, east of Council Road between Reno and I-40, county records show.

A lease plan put together by Illinois-based Horizon Group Properties Inc.'s office in Muskegon, Mich., shows an eight-building, 330,000-square-foot retail center called Oklahoma Factory Shoppes. The two-page marketing document shows space occupied by Brooks Brothers, Banana Republic, Tommy Hilfiger, Eddie Bauer, Dockers, Ann Taylor, Gap, Nike, Liz Claiborne and other brand-name manufacturers.

The document is the type used to promote such developments and does not mean that the tenants have been signed.

However, Horizon Group, which has developed several outlet centers, presumably has relationships with such manufacturers. In addition to Oklahoma City, the trust's Web page lists sites in Muskegon and Holland in Michigan, Laredo and El Paso in Texas, Huntley, Ill., and Gretna, Neb.

Neither Zerby nor a spokesman for Horizon Group could be reached Wednesday.

Oklahoma Factory Shoppes would be in the vicinity of 28 shopping centers totaling 3.6 million square feet with an occupancy of about 90 percent at the end of 2006, according to Price Edwards & Co. The area also includes 66 freestanding retailers with another 3.6 million square feet of space.

Price Edwards includes the neighborhood in its definition of the metro area's west-central submarket, bordered by NW 39 Expressway north, I-40 south, Lincoln east, plus Yukon and Mustang.

Across the metro area, shopping center occupancy remained stable at around 90 percent, or 2.45 million square feet, through the last half of 2006, with another 665,000 square feet of vacant freestanding retail space, Price Edwards said recently in its year-end retail market summary.

A factory outlet center would be considered a specialty retail property, but with 14 new retail centers under way totaling 3 million square feet, retail forecasters are keeping a close eye on new construction as well as several projects announced but not started, Price Edwards said.

"While it is unclear how much of these strip centers are preleased, there is a sense that many of them are (speculative), and their success could be affected by the large amount of new competition,” the firm said. "We continue to be concerned about this new construction taking tenants from a number of our older centers and causing increased vacancy. Overall, when the announced developments are considered, we predict at least 5 million square feet of new retail properties opening in our market over the next five years. We also believe that a number of older centers will suffer and have to change their market focus if they are to remain viable.”

[metro]

Yeah, honestly I think Richard Mize gets most of his "leads" from OKCTalk. If you look at when his stories hit, they are usually 1-3 days after OKC Talk posts information. We need to publish our own newspaper and put the Daily Disappointment out of business.

[kmf563]

agreed.

I get more news from here than I do the paper.

[Pete]

I think we should all take such things as a compliment.

And these reporters are smart to get information here... There are hundreds of us gathering information as opposed to a few people in a newsroom.

Newspaper staffs have been trimmed a great deal over the years and that's too bad because it's just about the only place that real reporting is still conducted.

[jbrown84]

Yeah, first thing I noticed this morning when opening Safari was that NewsOK had picked up two stories that broke here at the beginning of the week:

The Brewery dropping live music, and this.

[blueice101]

AHH... Nothing like reading through all the mindless bickering..

Glad to hear about the outlet though. I miss the Stroud center.

[John]

Yeah, first thing I noticed this morning when opening Safari was that NewsOK had picked up two stories that broke here at the beginning of the week:

The Brewery dropping live music, and this.

Some of the quotes from that article really irked me...

[jbrown84]

Like what? The stuff about Bricktown not being a place for live music anymore?

[John]

Like what? The stuff about Bricktown not being a place for live music anymore?

Exactly. <sigh> If we had better local promoters, the local scene might be a little better.

Bricktown is still a great place for live music.

[kmf563]

completely agree - this should probably be a new thread, but that's entirely the reason I started doing FREE promotions for local musicians. There are quite a few good bands in this state and people really don't support them until the rest of the nation says they are good. For example, Hinder. They have been around for years and years barely making money off of gigs at the Blue Note until the rest of the nation said they were a good band. Then all of a sudden they sell out 3 nights in a row at the bricktown event center. I personally am not a Hinder fan, but I support them because they are Oklahomans and are doing what they love. The Bricktown Brewery could have very easily packed their house with a little promotion and some effort. They really didn't have to blindly cancel shows either...how about honoring contracts with what's already scheduled and just stop scheduling future shows?? That would have been nice instead of the bands finding out via word of mouth.

[jbrown84]

Yeah the things they said made it sound like somewhere else had taken over as OKC's live music "destination", but that's not true. Venues keep closing and NOTHING is taking their place.

[Spartan]

do you think it will hurt or kill the other shopping centers? quail, penn etc..

You can say that for all new developments. This is just a new development.

OKC is growing. Quail Springs and Penn Square will sink or swim. I predict Penn Square will swim, Quail Springs, could do anything.

[HOT ROD]

To follow up on y_h's post,
I concur that St. Louis Mills has been a big disappointment. Part of the problem is its location. It was built a long way from where the affluent population center of St. Louis is. It had a few cool stores at the beginning, but it also had a lot of junk from the beginning. People didn't want to drive 20-30 minutes to shop at a few good stores, when you have to navigate through acres of ordinary stuff. The two or three times I was there, it felt like I wandered and wandered and wandered to find any store I wanted to patronize.

But also it has a lot of competition in St. Louis. When you have malls here with Nieman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom and dozens of smaller brand-name stores, who is going to go out of their way for a few good outlets? Also, not to be politically incorrect, but because of its location, it began to attract a miscreant crowd. In fact, they recently had to implement a curfew at that mall, children under 18 aren't allowed in there by themselves at night. There have been several fights there.

This mall in OKC sounds very exciting. And because it wouldn't have as much competition and the traffic isn't as bad, it should do better than the one in St. Louis. Although I-40 and Council is kind of in the sticks, being right on the highway should help it out a lot. Still, my fear is that this is one of how many attempts currently underway to up the retail ante in OKC? If good power centers are built on I-35 in Edmond, north of Quail Springs, University Park in Norman, this one on Council...are we diluting the audience a bit? Can all of these places make it? Would we be better off choosing two - say Quail Springs and Norman and concentrating the high quality retail there, so there is a little density of purpose? I'm not a retail expert, just random thoughts... Of course all of this could be concentrated downtown, but that's not exactly the business model for these types of places.

STL you have a point, BUT I actually think this outlet mall will HELP downtown - as it will get the upscale names in the metro (and state) AND if there ist support - Im sure the retail versions will set up shop. And downtown OKC is the hottest market for just about anything now but ESPECIALLY retail. All it will take is one major retailier to announce a location downtown and the rest ist history. The outlet mall could be like a test market for them for OKC's viability - Im sure it will pass with flying colours.

Actually, we were in OKC for the festival and my fiance asked me if OKC had an outlet mall. I told her we used to (on far NW Exprwy) but it isn't there anymore. I dont know why that failed other than lack of access, I suppose - as it was in the middle of no-where back when it was constructed. There is a freeway out there now, the outler loop toll road, so maybe it might come back also - I think OKC could support 2 or 3 outlet malls.

I hope these are not the enclosed "malls" but are the outside cafe style shoppes, like was said - malls are dinosaurs, they are needed - true, but outdoor shoppes are in fashion now!

But I am so glad to hear about this. Perfect location also, still in OKC limits (tax collections) yet far away enough not to interfere too much with the existing retail centers. Beautiful, hopefully a hotel or two and other attractions will make I-40/Council/Outer Loop area another destination for the OKC metro.

I also liked the statistics published by horizon for Oklahoma City. I wish other businesses would do like horizon and not downstate OKC all of the time. With the success of major leagues here (and IM POSITIVE THAT HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH THIS BY THE WAY), OKC is on the rise and is clearly becoming legitimate Tier II status.!!!

Tour busses from downtown OKC and Meridian district to the Oklahoma Premium Outlets!!!

[Millie]

I wonder if the stores on the list are set in stone. The concept of the outlet mall is exciting, but none of the stores are that unique/thrilling.

[Spartan]

To follow up on y_h's post,
I concur that St. Louis Mills has been a big disappointment. Part of the problem is its location. It was built a long way from where the affluent population center of St. Louis is. It had a few cool stores at the beginning, but it also had a lot of junk from the beginning. People didn't want to drive 20-30 minutes to shop at a few good stores, when you have to navigate through acres of ordinary stuff. The two or three times I was there, it felt like I wandered and wandered and wandered to find any store I wanted to patronize.

But also it has a lot of competition in St. Louis. When you have malls here with Nieman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom and dozens of smaller brand-name stores, who is going to go out of their way for a few good outlets? Also, not to be politically incorrect, but because of its location, it began to attract a miscreant crowd. In fact, they recently had to implement a curfew at that mall, children under 18 aren't allowed in there by themselves at night. There have been several fights there.

This mall in OKC sounds very exciting. And because it wouldn't have as much competition and the traffic isn't as bad, it should do better than the one in St. Louis. Although I-40 and Council is kind of in the sticks, being right on the highway should help it out a lot. Still, my fear is that this is one of how many attempts currently underway to up the retail ante in OKC? If good power centers are built on I-35 in Edmond, north of Quail Springs, University Park in Norman, this one on Council...are we diluting the audience a bit? Can all of these places make it? Would we be better off choosing two - say Quail Springs and Norman and concentrating the high quality retail there, so there is a little density of purpose? I'm not a retail expert, just random thoughts... Of course all of this could be concentrated downtown, but that's not exactly the business model for these types of places.

The suggestion that we should limit ourselves to two lifestyle centers including downtown development is offensive at best.

[HOT ROD]

I agree Spartan. We should go big time with our retail options, and should not settle for second best anymore. We have played second fiddle to DFW for the past 30 years and it used to be unthinkable of OKC getting anything other than your typical walmart.

Although outlet stores are not the retail anchors, its a start and a step in the right direction. Like I said, once the retailiers see the outlets being successful here - there will be much more interest in downtown and Im sure the droves will follow the first major upscale retailier into downtown.

And I agree, OKC can support way more than 2 lifestyle centers. Maybe STL was saying we should start with 2 (along with downtown) - I could see that. But certainly OKC could support more in the future!!