North Town Mall fights for business, customers

A stroll through any traditional mall may include a bite to eat at the food court, the purchase of a new suit, or a stop in the movie theater.

North Town Mall is not a traditional mall.

For years the Wal-Mart-owned, 280,000-square-foot mall at Glenstone Avenue and Kearney Street has struggled to survive, much less compete with its south-side counterpart, Battlefield Mall.

Veteran real estate counselor Kirk Heyle, a certified commercial investment member, blames a lack of high-traffic tenants.

"It's a pretty good-sized building and it's on a major corner, and it's not doing anything," Heyle said.

The mall's tenant list includes a church in its former movie theater, arts and crafts shops, and offices hardly attractions to mall rats with money to spend. National retailers make up seven of the mall's 34 tenants, inside and outlot.

There is 43,000 square feet of vacant space including empty classrooms since Ozarks Technical Community College departed two years ago and only one vendor in the food court. But, the mall has seen a 15-percent increase in occupancy rates now at 80 percent during the last two years, according to Bryan Phillips, mall manager with Gumberg Asset Management.

Still, shoppers essentially find a food court without food, a theater without movies and a mall without a clothing retailer.

Missed dollars

While progress has been made to revive the indoor mall shown in the increased occupancy rate more is happening outside its doors. From new restaurants like Ryan's Family Steak House across Kearney Street, to new and updated hotels along Glenstone Avenue, the area has picked up commercially.

The slew of hotels leading up to Interstate 44 has potential to bring dollars into the mall from travelers stopping in the area.

Applebee's is bringing in the business, according to its general manager Matt Schmitt. His restaurant generates more than $50,000 in sales each week, a good portion of which comes from travelers, he said. That's about $10,000 more than was expected of that location.

Yet Schmitt, who pays rent as a tenant of the mall's outlot, hasn't stepped foot in the mall since taking over last year. "No reason to," Schmitt said, without the big name retailers.

Heyle doesn't find any either.

"There's actually no real reason for anybody to walk up and down that center," Heyle said. "If you go to Wal-Mart there on the east side, there's nothing pulling them back. The movie theater is gone and there's not an anchor down there. It's not helping the little tenants."

Wal-Mart owned

With Wal-Mart owning the mall property, Heyle wonders if the corporation cares how the mall performs. Or maybe there is a hidden agenda, he said.

"Owners definitely have marketing plans. Somebody as strong as Wal-Mart surely would be telling Gumberg what they want to do there," Heyle said. "If they were trying very hard you'd think they'd be shooting for some major tenant to get down at that west end. They need to get some foot traffic out there, and they're not getting any."

He also thinks tenants might fear a location so close to Wal-Mart.

A possible scenario is something similar to the Wal-Mart conversion in the South Oaks Centre on Campbell Avenue, which converted to a Supercenter May 22. Wal-Mart also owns the South Oaks Centre.

Wal-Mart plans to convert about 110 general merchandise stores to Supercenters next year, but Trina Davis in the Real Estate Department could not say if the East Kearney store was included.

"I can't discuss that," she said.

Wal-Mart's community affairs manager of the southeast region, Daphne Davis Moore, said there are no plans to speak of regarding the North Town Mall property, and Phillips said none have been disclosed to him.

"There are probably plans somewhere, I am just not aware of them right now," he said.

North-side development

The majority of the mall's 34 tenants are smaller, independently owned novelty shops, such as Grammy's Fudgery, Busy Bee Electronics, The Golden Mug and Ozarks R/C Raceway.

Arts and crafts retailers are what Phillips calls his "strongest tenants."

"It's a craft mall," he said. "I have a lot of exhibitors and a lot of crafters in here."

Commercial and residential development to the south has made it tough on mall management to secure big-name tenants, Phillips added. "But it seems like here within the last couple years, the north is making a comeback," he said.

In addition to the restaurants and hotels catering to I-44 traffic, future area plans include construction of The Bank's north-side branch on East Kearney Street and a remodel/expansion to Prime Inc.'s Oasis Convention Center and Hotel next to the mall property.

Also helping north side retail is the improvements to Town & Country shopping center near Kansas Expressway and Kearney Street. A new facade and parking lot improvements, which are nearing completion, have produced two new national tenants, according to its developer Bill Jester. International House of Pancakes is adding a north-side location and AT&T Wireless will go in the center's outlot.

These national retailers generate more traffic to existing tenants, Jester said. "We have tenants right now extending and renewing their leases," he added, hinting at what might be possible at North Town Mall.

North Town Mall's interior national tenants are RadioShack, Anne's Hallmark, Waldenbooks and Sears Portrait Studio. Outside tenants are Subway and Applebee's. There are more vacancies six than there are national retailers inside the mall.

However, in the last three years the occupancy rate has increased from 65 percent in 2000 to about 80 percent today, Phillips said, including the Wal-Mart space. Excluding Wal-Mart's 113,000 square feet, the mall is 75 percent full.

New tenants

Phillips, who has been general manager since April, said Pier 1 Imports has contacted him requesting demographic information. Other possible tenant signings are in the form of a small sports store and a Dallas businessman who is looking for a minimum 20,000 square feet, Phillips said.

"Within the last month I've had a couple national chains call and inquire," Phillips said.