Velocity Retail Group announces that Old Navy leased 15,039 SF at the Tucson Spectrum shopping center at the SWC of Irvington and Interstate 19 in Tucson.
Darren Pitts and Dave Cheatham of Velocity Retail represented Old Navy in the transaction. The current shopping center owner is Developers Diversified Realty, which purchased the center during the final stages of the Old Navy transaction from Barclay Creswin Tucson Spectrum, LP of Phoenix.
The new store opened in November of 2012 and was one of a handful of new stores that Old Navy completed in the calendar year.
“Like many national retailers, new store growth has been on pause during the last several years of the recession,” Pitts said. “This store was originally reviewed in 2006 and then tabled until recently. The fact that Old Navy chose Tucson as one of their new store locations nationally for 2012 is extremely positive,” he added. This is the fourth store for Old Navy in the Tucson market, and the 18th store in Arizona.
In another transaction, Velocity’s Judi Butterworth negotiated a 28,000 SF lease with Baby Town, LLC for the Crossroads Towne Center at the SEC of the Loop 202 and Gilbert Road in Gilbert.
This will be Baby Town’s first store. Five years ago, the owners, Ocean and Tracy Zhang, sold costumes from their garage online. Now their ecommerce business employs 10 year-round and 60 seasonal employees.
They saw a strong market demand for offline baby products where customers could see, touch, and test the products. They decided to open a new baby store to offer a large one-stop shopping destination for the East Valley.
Butterworth utilized Velocity Retail’s analysis of big boxes throughout the Phoenix area and completed a thorough study of various trade areas in the Phoenix metropolitan area in order to determine the best location for Baby Town.
“The tenant was analyzing Phoenix vs. Austin Texas and Phoenix won,” she said. “After they were able to see the quality of the real estate, the future growth potential in Gilbert and favorable family demographics it was just a matter of negotiating the best terms for the tenant.”
Baby Town specializes in children up to age 3. It has several departments including maternity, baby gear, furniture, clothing, toys, diapers, formula, gifts, and accessories. Their large baby play area will allow parents to test-drive new toys with their babies, and provides a social outlet to meet other new parents.
