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The Promenade At Chenal


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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.

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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
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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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).

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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 .

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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 .

You guys are confusing his original comment. He ('the man' - quoting Aporkalypse), was questioning the tenant mix of the new Kelley/Daily project at Col. Glen as it relates to Shackelford Crossing, i.e. how their demographic could differentiate from each other....not The Promenade at Chenal. We can't comment on the "quality" of the Promenade yet b/c nobody knows the quality of the architecture or the tenant mix.

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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 .

I agree totally. I don't understand how they can hope to fill this center up completely with high-quality tenants when the center across the street isn't even full.

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Too Remote

Not for long.

This is just the same thing that's been going on with LR since I was born. Westward Ho and all. I remember when Bowman and Markham was the sticks and Baptist Med Center was "way the hell out there".

I just wish we had a real major retail center instead of all of these smaller ones. I hate to say it, but I keep thinking maybe all of the backlash against the Summit Mall (which I was part of) was misguided.

As for the tenants at Promenade at Chenal, I'm feeling increasingly confident they'll be high quality. I still think they robbed Schickel of most of his top tenants. We'll see, though.

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Not for long.

This is just the same thing that's been going on with LR since I was born. Westward Ho and all. I remember when Bowman and Markham was the sticks and Baptist Med Center was "way the hell out there".

I just wish we had a real major retail center instead of all of these smaller ones. I hate to say it, but I keep thinking maybe all of the backlash against the Summit Mall (which I was part of) was misguided.

As for the tenants at Promenade at Chenal, I'm feeling increasingly confident they'll be high quality. I still think they robbed Schickel of most of his top tenants. We'll see, though.

I couldn't agree with you more on all points (it will eventually be crowded out there - just seems too remote to make a legitimate go today) - especially the diversification of developments. Total lost opportunity...lots of mickey mouse stuff really.

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