BEACHWOOD, OH-Evansville-based Shoe Carnival, a footwear chain with 328 locations, has agreed to open four new stores in malls owned by locally based DDR Corp. The move is part of DDR’s focus to consolidate small shop space for national retailer use.
The new stores will open this year at four malls. Shoe Carnival will open a 12,000-square-foot store at the one-million-square-foot Family Center at Riverdale in Riverdale, Utah; an 11,000-square-foot store at the 325,000-square-foot Wando Crossing in Mt. Pleasant, SC; an 8,000-square-foot store at the 188,000-square-foot Ashley Crossing in Charleston, SC and a 12,000-square-foot store at the 636,000-square-foot Plaza Escorial in Carolina, Puerto Rico.
DDR has been successfully consolidating small shop space for national credit tenants, said Paul Freddo, senior EVP of leasing and development, in the company’s conference call on fourth quarter earnings on Feb. 17. He said in the past two years, the mall owner has consolidated 290 small shop units, for the most part vacant, into 119 larger units leased out to retailers such as Shoe Carnival, PetSmart, Dots, Carter’s and Five Below.
Basically, the firm wants to divest itself as much as possible of small shop spaces, through these consolidations and purchases of malls with larger big box sites, Freddo said during the call. The company says it’s spaces larger than 10,000 square feet are about 96% leased, while small shops are only about 84% leased.
For its part, Shoe Carnival also has plans for growth. In its Jan. 5 earnings guidance, the retailer, which reported a same-store sales decline of up to 3.5% in the fourth quarter, expects to open 30 new stores this year. “We remain intently focused on accelerating our store growth and the potential that new stores represent,” said Mark Lemond, president and CEO, in a statement.
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