FORT WORTH-A one-million-sf regional mall, nearing a one-year mark for a long-awaited re-tenanting, has landed two entertainment operators in an ongoing push to parlay the property into a Hispanic retail stronghold. The venues will fill about 70,000 sf, including an eight-screen shuttered theater once operated by the $1 movie chain.
Signing five-year leases for the Fort Worth Town Center are Arcababa Inc., which plans to open an OK Corral nightclub in 35,000 sf formerly occupied by the Marabu club, and Cinema Latino, the first location for what is hoped will end up as a theater chain. About 30% to 40% of the tenants in the 70%-leased mall at 4200 S. Freeway are Hispanic retailers, Luis Pina, vice president of the Henry S. Miller Commercial International Group in Dallas, tells GlobeSt.com.
Pina, who represents, Arcababa and the mall's California owners, says the nightclub signing solidifies his client's foothold in the metroplex. The Dallas-based Hispanic entertainment chain has three clubs in Dallas under the brandings of Far West, Liquid and Bobalou; the Arcadia in North Fort Worth; an OK Corral in Houston; and a Far West in Oklahoma City. Pina's not ready to talk about the cities, but confides that the chain's owners now are scouting locations in major metros on the West Coast and the Southeast US.
It is hoped that the nightclub and the theater will open simultaneously in March. The theater's been dark for nearly a year. Cinema Latino, which will show Mexican movies, negotiated directly with the property owner, who also owns a Hispanic mall in Los Angeles. Pina says the theater plan is to option other closed theaters, “if they do well.”
The repositioning kicked off in spring 2002 when the mall, situated at Seminary Road and Interstate 35 south, traded hands in a closing that came within months of losing its department store anchors. Pina says the plan is to develop the mall into the centerpiece for a Hispanic community, which accounts for 60% of the households in South Fort Worth.
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