1188 replies to this topic

[LIT uPP]

For a long time, the discussion of this project has been held in the “Chenal/Highway 10” thread, mainly due to its tentative nature.  However, after driving by the project site, this afternoon, I thought, “Wow!  It’s really happening.”  The large swath of land is completely cleared (with the exception of a few intentionally saved trees), and several piles of debris were being burned.  This extensive clearing, combined with the fact that RED closed on the property, late last year, pretty much confirms that the Promenade at Chenal will be built.

So, how about giving this major retail project its own thread?

A couple of descriptive passages from PAC’s page on RED Development’s website read as follows:
“The Promenade at Chenal, a 340,000-square-foot, open-air, lifestyle center, is located in Chenal Valley in west Little Rock, Ark. The shopping center will be home to a variety of upscale national, regional and local retailers, restaurant and entertainment venues.

The center will be designed in a French Gothic style. The open-air design of the center replicates a nostalgic Main Street shopping district. Vehicular access to the Main Street allows convenient parking in front of your favorite store or restaurant. Extensive sidewalks, landscaping and hardscape will create a pedestrian-friendly environment ideal for shopping, entertainment and socializing.”
RED’s website is here:  http://reddevelopment.com The Promenade page can be found under the “commitment” link – “projects under development.”

One of my initial impressions is how sloped the property is.  From Chenal you look down into the land, where the bulk of the building will take place.  I can’t imagine that construction will begin until some of the acreage is leveled.  I also realize the importance of a traffic light at Chenal and Rahling.  The extension of Rahling from Chenal around the northern and western perimeter of the Promenade is well underway.  The light is important, today, but I can imagine plenty of traffic in a couple of years driving along Rahling and crossing Chenal to access Promenade at Chenal and points beyond.  There is plenty of construction already underway or planned on Rahling, east of Chenal.  I also noticed the indications of a new turn lane emerging along Chenal, approaching La Grande (the street on the southern edge of the project).

It will be exciting to see the project take shape in the coming months, and to learn the retailers committing to it.  Let’s hope for some big news.

[Architect]

LIT uPP, on Feb 8 2007, 10:52 PM, said:

For a long time, the discussion of this project has been held in the “Chenal/Highway 10” thread, mainly due to its tentative nature.  However, after driving by the project site, this afternoon, I thought, “Wow!  It’s really happening.”  The large swath of land is completely cleared (with the exception of a few intentionally saved trees), and several piles of debris were being burned.  This extensive clearing, combined with the fact that RED closed on the property, late last year, pretty much confirms that the Promenade at Chenal will be built.

So, how about giving this major retail project its own thread?

A couple of descriptive passages from PAC’s page on RED Development’s website read as follows:
“The Promenade at Chenal, a 340,000-square-foot, open-air, lifestyle center, is located in Chenal Valley in west Little Rock, Ark. The shopping center will be home to a variety of upscale national, regional and local retailers, restaurant and entertainment venues.

The center will be designed in a French Gothic style. The open-air design of the center replicates a nostalgic Main Street shopping district. Vehicular access to the Main Street allows convenient parking in front of your favorite store or restaurant. Extensive sidewalks, landscaping and hardscape will create a pedestrian-friendly environment ideal for shopping, entertainment and socializing.”
RED’s website is here:  http://reddevelopment.com The Promenade page can be found under the “commitment” link – “projects under development.”

One of my initial impressions is how sloped the property is.  From Chenal you look down into the land, where the bulk of the building will take place.  I can’t imagine that construction will begin until some of the acreage is leveled.  I also realize the importance of a traffic light at Chenal and Rahling.  The extension of Rahling from Chenal around the northern and western perimeter of the Promenade is well underway.  The light is important, today, but I can imagine plenty of traffic in a couple of years driving along Rahling and crossing Chenal to access Promenade at Chenal and points beyond.  There is plenty of construction already underway or planned on Rahling, east of Chenal.  I also noticed the indications of a new turn lane emerging along Chenal, approaching La Grande (the street on the southern edge of the project).

It will be exciting to see the project take shape in the coming months, and to learn the retailers committing to it.  Let’s hope for some big news.

I'm glad its happening I suppose, but the traffic count out there is atrociously low, and it is SO far off of the beaten path...it must be 5-6 miles from the freeway.  Not to mention that it further diffuses development in Little Rock to yet ANOTHER small-to-medium sized project with no real gravity and I would suggest a low probability of staying power.  I realize that traffic will continue to rise out there, but there's no way it can become a regional draw that far from a traffic center.  Perhaps it can survive with the local high-income traffic.  Time will tell.

[EJC]

Architect, on Feb 9 2007, 09:10 PM, said:

I'm glad its happening I suppose, but the traffic count out there is atrociously low, and it is SO far off of the beaten path...it must be 5-6 miles from the freeway.  Not to mention that it further diffuses development in Little Rock to yet ANOTHER small-to-medium sized project with no real gravity and I would suggest a low probability of staying power.  I realize that traffic will continue to rise out there, but there's no way it can become a regional draw that far from a traffic center.  Perhaps it can survive with the local high-income traffic.  Time will tell.

I have to admit I'm less concerned about it being a "regional draw" than with it being a place that offers some new restaraunt and purchasing options.  There's definitely risk there, as there is with Pleasant Ridge, but the opportunity to create a highly desirable environment is also there.  I guess we'll just all have to see how it plays out.

[Aporkalypse]

EJC, on Feb 10 2007, 12:01 PM, said:

I have to admit I'm less concerned about it being a "regional draw" than with it being a place that offers some new restaraunt and purchasing options.  There's definitely risk there, as there is with Pleasant Ridge, but the opportunity to create a highly desirable environment is also there.  I guess we'll just all have to see how it plays out.

I'm hoping we'll some "destination" stores and restaurants, place like Apple, Cheesecake Factory, etc that people from Pulaski Co will drive to just to go to, that it will be decidedly more upscale than other malls and that will be its draw along with shops and restaurants catering to the small but wealthy local crowd.  As time goes on I don't think its location will be as big of an issue.  Almost all of LR's growth is west of I-430 (it's probably losing people east of it) so this location will be much easier to reach as time goes on.  I think the geographic location will be pretty perfect, it's really more the lack of interstate access that will be the issue.

I am with Architect in wishing for a true regional mall near I-430 instead of multiple smaller shopping centers in the area.  In retrospect, I'm not so sure I should've been so anti-Summit Mall.  Park Plaza probably would've been able to sustain itself with another mall further West because of the size of the region and it would've let us have a single retail focus in West LR instead of a hodgepodge of minimalls.  At the same time, this is following national trends and it will have less of a traffic impact.

LitUPP, I was up there last weekend (coming up next weekend as well) and was shocked at how fast they'd cleared that land.  They were obviously pretty serious about it.  I guess I didn't really recognize how large the tract of land really was but it's actually pretty huge.

There's plenty of room for new commercial development behind the Promenade as well.

Edited by Aporkalypse, 10 February 2007 - 02:32 PM.

[theman]

As Aporkalypse said the key is going to be the Promenade attracting retailers and restaurants that are not in the region.  If it can attract Macy's, Apple, Crate and Barrel, Cheesecake Factory and the like, people will go there.  A truly high end retail center can survive there without the benefit of being near a major interstate

[Architect]

theman, on Feb 11 2007, 12:10 AM, said:

As Aporkalypse said the key is going to be the Promenade attracting retailers and restaurants that are not in the region.  If it can attract Macy's, Apple, Crate and Barrel, Cheesecake Factory and the like, people will go there.  A truly high end retail center can survive there without the benefit of being near a major interstate

Maybe.  But its a big risk none-the-less.  I'd rather be closer to I-430/I-630 with 10 times the volume and easy access for regional travel.

[Aporkalypse]

Architect, on Feb 11 2007, 02:03 PM, said:

Maybe.  But its a big risk none-the-less.  I'd rather be closer to I-430/I-630 with 10 times the volume and easy access for regional travel.

I agree with the risk.  The people doing this seem to know what they are doing and the timing is too perfect.  This project waited out the whole Summit Mall/Simon phase, waited out Midtown and then Pleasant Ridge.  Pleasant Ridge was supposed to be full of tenants we all had seen rumored or in your case had actually seen the plans for, yet most of the bigger names that weren't anchors (Fresh Market, Parisian, Borders) held out for something better.  All of the sudden RED closes on the land and now dozes the whole site in basically no time?  The timing just suggests to me that RED got a lot of Schickel's preferred tenants to jump ship to their development, possibly because they already had other similar tenants going with them.  If that's the case there's much less risk to this project.

If the development caters to six-figure incomers living in West LR or in the Heights its location is fine, it doesn't need to have easy interstate access to people from places like  Malvern and Jacksonville that don't know LR.  If it's more of a middle-end development it would be a huge problem.

I would wager Deltic put a million specifications on what they want this project to be like, especially regarding facades and types of restaurants.  They've kept out fast food and cheaper businesses and I'm sure they won't allow Promenade to be anything but first rate because if it were it would affect their bottom line.

[hartford]

IF the Promenade is as nice as we are hoping it will be then people will come.  Word of mouth and exclusivity of the stores/restaurants will drive traffic to that area.  Saddle Creek in Memphis (an outdoor upscale shopping center) is not exactly on the interstate.  It is in a nicer part of Memphis much like Chenal is one of the nicer parts of LR.

[Architect]

Aporkalypse, on Feb 11 2007, 03:18 PM, said:

I agree with the risk.  The people doing this seem to know what they are doing and the timing is too perfect.  This project waited out the whole Summit Mall/Simon phase, waited out Midtown and then Pleasant Ridge.  Pleasant Ridge was supposed to be full of tenants we all had seen rumored or in your case had actually seen the plans for, yet most of the bigger names that weren't anchors (Fresh Market, Parisian, Borders) held out for something better.  All of the sudden RED closes on the land and now dozes the whole site in basically no time?  The timing just suggests to me that RED got a lot of Schickel's preferred tenants to jump ship to their development, possibly because they already had other similar tenants going with them.  If that's the case there's much less risk to this project.

If the development caters to six-figure incomers living in West LR or in the Heights its location is fine, it doesn't need to have easy interstate access to people from places like  Malvern and Jacksonville that don't know LR.  If it's more of a middle-end development it would be a huge problem.

I would wager Deltic put a million specifications on what they want this project to be like, especially regarding facades and types of restaurants.  They've kept out fast food and cheaper businesses and I'm sure they won't allow Promenade to be anything but first rate because if it were it would affect their bottom line.

I totally agree with your assessment.  If it does in fact secure the high-end tenants that have been anticipated in the market (or at least second LR locations like Banana Republic, Victorias Secret, etc.), then the "remoteness" is less of an issue as this will cater to a specific high-end demorgraphic unique to LR AND those type of tenants will draw people to wherever they are located.

hartford, on Feb 11 2007, 03:37 PM, said:

IF the Promenade is as nice as we are hoping it will be then people will come.  Word of mouth and exclusivity of the stores/restaurants will drive traffic to that area.  Saddle Creek in Memphis (an outdoor upscale shopping center) is not exactly on the interstate.  It is in a nicer part of Memphis much like Chenal is one of the nicer parts of LR.

Yes, I imagine it would be similar.  However, even Saddle Creek couldn't hold onto either Restoration Hardware, or Apple...both have closed (Apple actually replaced Restoration Hardware before it too shut down).

[Aporkalypse]

Architect, on Feb 11 2007, 03:46 PM, said:

I totally agree with your assessment.  If it does in fact secure the high-end tenants that have been anticipated in the market (or at least second LR locations like Banana Republic, Victorias Secret, etc.), then the "remoteness" is less of an issue as this will cater to a specific high-end demorgraphic unique to LR AND those type of tenants will draw people to wherever they are located.

Which begs to ask the question - what the hell is going in to Kelley and Dailey's project over on Col Glenn and 430?  I can't figure that out.  500,000 SF in two phases?  I just can't think what that would be.  I want to see a Macy's and Costco somewhere in the west LR mix but those belong in two very different kinds of developments.  At the very least I'm optimistic we're about to get a lot of stores we don't have.


I actually thought Midtowne was perfect for Apple and especially Restoration Hardware.  Where else do you see so much restoration?  More updating of classic older homes happens in LR in an area within 5 miles of that than in many cities 5 times LR's size.

[LRU1967]

Architect, on Feb 11 2007, 03:46 PM, said:

Yes, I imagine it would be similar.  However, even Saddle Creek couldn't hold onto either Restoration Hardware, or Apple...both have closed (Apple actually replaced Restoration Hardware before it too shut down).

Are you sure about the Apple Store?  Both the Apple and Saddle Creek web sites have it still open. The Apple-Saddle Creek site has the schedule of workshops etc. through February.

[Architect]

LRU1967, on Feb 11 2007, 06:51 PM, said:

Are you sure about the Apple Store?  Both the Apple and Saddle Creek web sites have it still open. The Apple-Saddle Creek site has the schedule of workshops etc. through February.

Hmmm....strange.  My sister-in-law, who is from Memphis, told me that it had closed (her husband also mentioned that to me).

[tennreb]

Architect, on Feb 11 2007, 07:22 PM, said:

Hmmm....strange.  My sister-in-law, who is from Memphis, told me that it had closed (her husband also mentioned that to me).

I bought a mac there last week, and the sales rep told me the store has been very successful.  On the tax holiday, there were hundreds of people in line in the parking lot.

[Architect]

tennreb, on Feb 11 2007, 08:31 PM, said:

I bought a mac there last week, and the sales rep told me the store has been very successful.  On the tax holiday, there were hundreds of people in line in the parking lot.

Cool.  Obviously, they were wrong!!  :-)

[LIT uPP]

I don’t think RED would be investing such a substantial amount of capital in this project if their research proved it too risky.  As experienced developers, they know what to look for in a market.  Even if their research proved the location slightly riskier than average in today’s environment, they may be moving forward, based on what they believe the market will be in three-to-five years.  Over the last four months, I’ve seen numerous residential and commercial proposals for Rahling and Chenal placed before the planning commission.  I’m sure RED officials know about these plans, as well, and for them that translates into a greater population base to feed into the Promenade at Chenal.  Ultimately for RED, this is about making a profit, and they wouldn’t be gambling on West Little Rock, if they believed the risks were too great.

I’m excited about this project not just because of the potentially new shopping experiences it will bring, but because it is a vote of confidence in Little Rock’s future by people who have a lot riding on that future.

[Architect]

LIT uPP, on Feb 11 2007, 09:11 PM, said:

I don’t think RED would be investing such a substantial amount of capital in this project if their research proved it too risky.  As experienced developers, they know what to look for in a market.  Even if their research proved the location slightly riskier than average in today’s environment, they may be moving forward, based on what they believe the market will be in three-to-five years.  Over the last four months, I’ve seen numerous residential and commercial proposals for Rahling and Chenal placed before the planning commission.  I’m sure RED officials know about these plans, as well, and for them that translates into a greater population base to feed into the Promenade at Chenal.  Ultimately for RED, this is about making a profit, and they wouldn’t be gambling on West Little Rock, if they believed the risks were too great.

I’m excited about this project not just because of the potentially new shopping experiences it will bring, but because it is a vote of confidence in Little Rock’s future by people who have a lot riding on that future.

You're right LIT uPP - no doubt they've done their homework.  Here's to hoping they're successful.

[theman]

Aporkalypse, on Feb 11 2007, 06:40 PM, said:

Which begs to ask the question - what the hell is going in to Kelley and Dailey's project over on Col Glenn and 430?  I can't figure that out.  500,000 SF in two phases?  I just can't think what that would be.  I want to see a Macy's and Costco somewhere in the west LR mix but those belong in two very different kinds of developments.  At the very least I'm optimistic we're about to get a lot of stores we don't have.

I was wondering the same thing.  Are they going to go after a totally different demographic than Shackleford Crossing or some of the same type of retailers?  In the article they said they wanted to complement Shackleford Crossing.  It will be interesting to see how they are going to do that.

[dookmaster]

Same demographic, just higher income I believe.  Shackleford will be middle to lower income, Promenade will be middle to upper middle.

[Aporkalypse]

theman, on Feb 11 2007, 11:34 PM, said:

I was wondering the same thing.  Are they going to go after a totally different demographic than Shackleford Crossing or some of the same type of retailers?  In the article they said they wanted to complement Shackleford Crossing.  It will be interesting to see how they are going to do that.

I was expecting it to be a little higher end, I'm not sure how it could be the same or lower because who would those tenants be?

I'm not sure if they're going for traditional mall tenants or big boxes.

What I do know is the restaurant market in LR is really looking up right now.

[info2]

Aporkalypse, on Feb 12 2007, 06:41 PM, said:

I was expecting it to be a little higher end, I'm not sure how it could be the same or lower because who would those tenants be?

I'm not sure if they're going for traditional mall tenants or big boxes.

What I do know is the restaurant market in LR is really looking up right now.

RED is in trouble in several locations already. Buildings and projects promised that
were not completed even in their own back yard, KC. Lots of hype but no cred.
Hope it happens as that WAS a beautiful site, but I'm not counting on anything but
local retail...........it's adjacent to millions of square feet of strip center .