The just-signed leases were inked by Panda Express, which penned a 20-year deal for a 27,865-sf pad site; Decorate for Less, signing a seven-year lease for 17,000 sf of inline space; and All Star Signworks, filling 1,400 sf with a medium-term deal. The repositioning began last fall when Fowler Trinity Properties, made up of partners in Dallas and California, bought the 157,000-sf shopping center at 6900 FM 1960 East.

Fowler Trinity Properties has put approximately $800,000 into the 23-year-old plaza "to give it a facelift," says Shawn Ackerman, senior vice president of Henry S. Miller Commercial's Houston office, who with Jason Gaines is responsible for leasing the asset. "When the owners first purchased the property, it was tired, the stores looked beat up."

In an example of the renovation, the pad site taken over by Panda Express was at one time a Pizza Hut. Trinity Fowler scraped the pad after Pizza Hut vacated last year, Ackerman says. The center is still undergoing renovation, but he says the work is expected to be completed in first quarter 2006.