Texas Town Centers, Malls Learning to Live Together

DALLAS-Can malls and town centers peacefully co-exist? Yes, say Texas town center developers who have successfully wedded the Main Street concept to a retail power base bringing upward of $300 per sf in sales to eclectic tenant mixes.

Town centers, one of today’s most popular retail concepts, aren’t roadblocks to the “malling of America,” but rather the next evolutionary step for US shoppers. “I don’t think it’s a question in terms of replacement,” Brian Stebbins, CEO of Cooper & Stebbins LP and developer of Southlake, TX’s town center, tells GlobeSt.com. “It’s a question of can they do as well or better.”

Simply follow the money to find out. In 2000, malls nationwide reaped $350 sales per sf. Texas malls snatched $330 per sf. “We’re above both of those,” confides Stebbins.The 125-acre Southlake Town Square is half built out at 500,000 sf, 100% occupied and gearing up to add a residential component to its two-year-old upscale development plan that boasts the ability to go as high as 2-1/2 million sf. With retail scoring homeruns every day in Southlake and more on the way, Stebbins & Cooper in 2002 will go one step further: 92 units in a Georgetown or Brownstone design and 80 second-floor lofts in the heart of the town square.