'Rapid? remoel planned for Sunshine Corners

Things have changed drastically at the corner of Campbell and Sunshine in the past year. The Wonders of Wildlife mu-seum has added life to the intersection, and the museum's recent $1.25 million acquisition of Shady Inn spells more change ahead.

Progress also is occurring across the street from the museum.

Wilson Properties Inc., owner of Sun-shine Corners since 1989, will renovate the retail center that originally was built in the early 1950s.

Brothers Robert and Tim Wilson, the officers and shareholders of Wilson Properties, are putting about $550,000 into the center for a facelift and remodel which will result in eight new tenant bays. Robert Wilson also owns the 23 Rapid Roberts convenience stores found in Ozarks' Conoco gas stations.

Sunshine Corners encompasses a total of 70,619 square feet and houses the Classy Frog Flea Market, McAlister's Deli and Rapid Roberts corporate of-fices, as well as 12 other tenants.

The former Michaels Arts & Crafts location, plus another 14,000 square feet, will be divided into the eight new spaces, with five bays facing Campbell and three facing Sunshine.

The center's leasing agent, Loren Win-ter of McLoud & Company LLC, said the tenant bays will range in size from 3,689 square feet to 5,052 square feet, with a maximum contiguous space of 10,078 square feet. Lease prices will range from $6 to $14 per square feet, he said.

"We are in negotiations right now with a national chain dollar store and a national chain automotive parts distributor" for the new spaces, Winter said. He added that other interested parties include na-tional video and ice cream stores, as well as a local arts and craft boutique.

Gray General Contractors Inc. of Ozark is general contractor for the project, which is planned for completion by mid-summer. Interior work already has begun.

Robert Wilson said the center's new appearance will resemble that of the space that houses McAlister's Deli, which his company remodeled about three years ago.

Improvements to the rest of Sunshine Corners were last made in 1990, Wilson said, shortly after the family corporation purchased it from Wayne Young.

Wilson said Michaels Arts & Crafts left Sunshine Corners in 1999, and the space has sat vacant since then because of its large size 22,400 square feet. He said the majority of people interested in that space were warehouse and liquidator type businesses.

"That was just not the image we wanted here on this corner," he said.

"The clients looking for those type of spaces are few and far between, so we knew we had to chop the spaces up and create the look of a center to attract a bigger percentage of clients," Tim Wilson added.

When work is complete, Winter said, Sunshine Corners will have a total of 23 tenant bays.

Robert Wilson started the Rapid Roberts chain in 1983. They can be found as far south as Eureka Springs, Ark., and as far north as Lake of the Ozarks.

The reach expands to Marshfield to the east and just past Joplin to the west, Wilson added.