Vestar, a prominent leader in commercial management, was selected as property manager at Christown Spectrum Mall in Phoenix.
“In today’s challenging retail market, owners understand that an experienced property manager is necessary for the success of a center,” says Pat McGinley, Vestar Vice President of Property Management.
Christown Spectrum Mall, formerly known as Phoenix Spectrum Mall, is a 1.14 MSF shopping center that caters to a diverse demographic. The change in management is not the only recent change; the exterior has been redesigned and developed to improve the overall environment of the property, according to Vestar officials.
Christown was Arizona’s first air-conditioned, enclosed mall and today it houses popular stores such as Walmart Supercenter, Walgreens, Ross Dress for Less, Costco Wholesale, Claire’s Boutique, and Dollar Tree. The mall also features other smaller specialty retail stores.
While Vestar continues to manage its various properties, it has begun examining and evaluating plans for Christown to specifically help increase mall traffic and tenant sales, Vestar says.
To increase the synergy from all of the tenants, the company plans to use its years of experience and the lessons it has learned to creatively think about every area of potential improvement.
The mall features seven anchor stores. Officials say in the current economic climate, having successful anchor stores is vital to the survival of a mall. In the past decade, several anchor stores began to close and put Christown in a difficult position. However, with the new redesign and change in management of the mall, the future will continue to look positive, officials predict.
A challenge that Vestar faces with Christown is the disparity of traffic throughout the different sections of the mall.
“We want to find new ways to drive traffic from one portion of the mall to another and create an environment where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” McGinley says.” One of Vestar’s core values includes innovation, which to Vestar, means, “tak(ing) lessons of today to create the projects of tomorrow” and the “innovation comes from (their) constant search for better results.”
Vestar is in the “process of evaluating each aspect of their operation to determine how best to improve the leasing, management and marketing functions,” McGinley says. He adds that tenants have been very responsive to the change in management and with the changes that Vestar is planning on making.
Founded in 1977, Vestar operates properties in Arizona, southern California, and now Nevada. Vestar oversees more than 45 properties which include Tempe Market Place, Desert Ridge Market Place, and Ahwatukee Foothills Towne Center in Arizona.
