Vestar, a leading privately held real estate company in the western United States that acquires and manages retail and entertainment destinations that serve as community focal points, announces a vast amount of new retailers at many of its centers. Noteworthy achievements for Vestar include the signing of new tenants totaling more than 240,000 square feet at its shopping centers in Arizona.
“We are pleased that our leasing professionals have been able to increase value to our client’s assets through new leasing activity at our centers this year,” said Patrick McGinley, vice president of property management for Vestar.
Opening at Tempe Marketplace in Tempe, Arizona is the highly-anticipated Portillo’s. A Chicago-land favorite, the menu includes a variety of favorite food items including Chicago-style hot dogs, Italian beef sandwiches, burgers, sausages, salads and desserts. This unique dining option occupies 8,000 square-feet of space on the intersection of Rio Salado Parkway and McClintock Drive, less than a mile from the new Cubs Spring Training facility opening spring 2014. This is Portillo’s only second Valley location. Other new leasing activity at Tempe Marketplace include Q (5,978 sq. ft.), a trendy apparel, footwear and accessories store which opened in April and Spirit Halloween (10,000 sq. ft.), which opened the end of August.
A coup for Mesa Grand is the May opening of metro Phoenix’s first Conn’s HomePlus (33,948 sq. ft.) location. Conn’s offers appliances, electronics, furniture and mattresses, in addition to product repair and service at this Mesa, Arizona location.
Queen Creek Marketplace in Queen Creek, Arizona, signed three new tenants opening within the next few months including the Smashburger opening in August (2,200 sq. ft.). Joining them in September included Geno’s Giant Slice (1,773 sq. ft.) and Spirit Halloween (30,363 sq. ft.). Earlier in the year, popular vitamin and nutritional supplement store, GNC (1,350 sq. ft.), opened in March.
This summer additional East Valley new tenants included the opening of BabyTown (28,000 sq. ft.), the largest privately owned baby products store, at Crossroads Towne Center. Another large space, Potato Barn (28,428 sq. ft.), a unique home furnishings store, at Gilbert Gateway Towne Center, along with Zig Zag Clothing and Shoes (7,500 sq. ft.) also opened. Las Tiendas Village, located in Chandler, Arizona, added tenant Kid to Kid (3,600 sq. ft.), a high quality children’s resale shop to its roster of tenants.
Earlier this year, Desert Ridge Marketplace opened Nori Sushi (3,269 sq. ft.), an upscale-casual sushi and Asian cuisine restaurant. Additionally, joining the roster this September included AZ Federal Credit Union (1,815 sq. ft.) and McFadden’s Restaurant and Saloon (6,500 sq. ft.), serving Irish-American dishes. Torrid (3,000 sq. ft.), featuring collections of trendy plus size clothing, will open this month.
In October, Happy Valley Towne Center will welcome new tenants Orangetheory Fitness (2,854 sq. ft.), featuring energizing group interval fitness workout sessions, and Bedmart (4,000 sq. ft.). Fresh Wasabi (1,380 sq. ft.), a fine Japanese cuisine and sushi bar restaurant, opened in August.
Rounding out the extensive list of signed tenants includes Lake Pleasant Towne Center’s tenant coming this month, Papa Murphy’s (1,515 sq. ft.), take and bake pizza. Also in September, Sundance Towne Center, in Buckeye, Arizona welcomed Connect Wireless (2,064 sq. ft.). Southern Arizona’s Oro Valley Marketplace in Oro Valley added Dollar Express (3,471 sq. ft.), which opened in March.