The Arizona Center, developed and owned by the Rouse Co., plans to take out its second-story food court and other second-story retail space and turn it into office space. The whole upstairs level of the eastern most building of the retail section of the center will be converted into class A office space. Some retail tenants only have until the end of the month to vacate their space.

Most of the restaurants on the upper level in the food court will be moving to space on the lower floor, says Jaunice Hartnibbrig, marketing director for the Arizona Center. There has been persistent talk among the remaining retailers that the Lerner clothing store, a two-story boutique on the center's western end, will be closed and the restaurants from the food court would be moved there, but Hartnibbrig says that Lerner will remain where it is.

This reshuffling is the latest sign that retail at the location, and in all of Downtown, isn't pulling in enough customers. While traffic for restaurants and some shops is high during the weekday lunch hour and during major sporting events during the evenings, it dwindles to a trickle at all other times.

Arizona Center has had difficulty finding customers for its 151,000-sf of retail space nearly from the moment it was completed in 1990. Retail mainstays like Victoria's Secret and the Gap closed their locations at thet center in the early 1990s and were followed by a raft of other retailers. After the exodus, Rouse has shifted much of that vacated retail space into restaurants and bars. Yet, the retailers still struggled.