JudynTX
01-08-2010, 09:29 AM
:D Bring back Orange Julius also!!!!!!!!!!!! :lol
In an attempt to reinvigorate the foundering Crossroads of San Antonio mall, investors who bought the property last year are returning to the shopping center's roots.
The mall will be renamed Wonderland of the Americas. When it opened in 1961, it was called Wonderland Shopping City.
Also, it will be rebranded with lower rents than traditional shopping malls and will feature entertainment, a medical center and space for local businesses.
Located at Interstate 10 and Loop 410 in Balcones Heights, the mall sits on prime real estate that's easily accessible, said San Antonio lawyer Stanley Rosenberg, a spokesman for the group that purchased Crossroads in July.
“We have made some changes, and we're going to try to succeed in making it a desirable place for small businesses,” Rosenberg said.
Crossroads will become Wonderland of the Americas in a ceremony at the mall at 10 a.m. next Thursday.
It will undergo a renovation, get new lighting and will get more security as part of the change, Rosenberg said.
The new owners are working to extend leases with the current tenants, he said, and the Santikos Bijou at Crossroads movie theater, an art house theater that serves food, will stay.
The new business model will involve wooing local businesses that can't afford space at a traditional mall, Rosenberg said.
There also are plans to approach Latin American retailers that have name recognition in San Antonio and convince them to open locations in Wonderland of the Americas, he said.
In the 1960s, Wonderland was an unrivaled shopping center on San Antonio's northern reaches, said Al Aguilar, chairman and CEO of Creative Civilization, the marketing firm promoting Wonderland of the Americas. In the mid-1980s, it was reborn as Crossroads, Aguilar said, but the mall always has been a retail operation.
Over the next few months, he said, it will transform into a community center that hosts concerts and festivals and features medical facilities and children's play areas. There will be a small business incubator that provides support services to tenants.
“Not only is it a new name, but it is a whole new personification of the relationship this mall will have with the community as a whole,” Aguilar said. “People from all parts of the community will come there for a very unique experience, unlike any other mall or shopping center in the San Antonio area.”
The mall has maintained its large tenants, including a SuperTarget, Burlington Coat Factory, Hobby Lobby and a Stein Mart. But Chuck Siegel, president of Rohde, Ottmers & Siegel Realty Inc., said big stores on the mall's exterior don't help tenants inside.
“The big anchors like Target and Burlington do well, but they don't generate traffic going into the mall,” Siegel said.
At least 50 percent of the mall's main floor is empty, he said.
Crossroads still is at a viable location on major roadways and near the Medical Center, said Oscar Montemayor, director of leasing for Wonderland of the Americas.
“We see great value, not only in the real estate, but in the buildings,” Montemayor said.
Crossroads also is home to two 40,000-square-foot conference facilities leased by Norris Conference Centers. President David Norris said his company will maintain its presence in the mall.
There's 630,718 square feet of leasable space in the shopping center, Montemayor said, but he didn't know the mall's current occupancy. A new tenant, a bridal store called Letty's, is moving into a 3,835-square-foot space, he said.
Kim Gatley, vice president and director of research at NAI REOC Partners, said the mall was at 83 percent occupancy before it was sold this summer, and hasn't had any significant leasing activity since.
If Wonderland of the Americas is a success, it will be good for that part of town, but won't have a massive impact, Gatley said.
“I don't see it as a dramatic shift one way or the other,” she said. “I mean, the mall itself is not dragging down the retail market in the Northwest. The Northwest is a fairly strong market, and getting a few new tenants in is not going to swing the retail market one way or the other. It will bring more traffic to that particular intersection and revive that mall as a consumer area.”
Indoor shopping malls are expensive to maintain, Siegel said, and as cities expand, high-dollar customers move out to newer suburbs.
In San Antonio, that means more high-end retail is moving nearer that customer, setting up shop on the northern stretches of Loop 1604 and leaving centers like Crossroads far away from their traditional customer base.
Malls all over the country are being repurposed, Siegel said. He pointed to Rackspace Hosting Inc. moving its headquarters into the former Windsor Park Mall in Windcrest as an example of new uses for shopping malls.
The idea of dropping rents and turning what had been a traditional shopping mall into a value shopping center isn't new, but it is new to San Antonio, he said.
“I can't say that there's another mall in San Antonio that has been changed to this type of operation,” he said. “It all is going to depend on their ability to get the type of tenants who can bring in the product that fits the pocketbook of the consumer who will shop in that area.”
http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/local/Wonderland_name_is_back_for_local_mall.html
In an attempt to reinvigorate the foundering Crossroads of San Antonio mall, investors who bought the property last year are returning to the shopping center's roots.
The mall will be renamed Wonderland of the Americas. When it opened in 1961, it was called Wonderland Shopping City.
Also, it will be rebranded with lower rents than traditional shopping malls and will feature entertainment, a medical center and space for local businesses.
Located at Interstate 10 and Loop 410 in Balcones Heights, the mall sits on prime real estate that's easily accessible, said San Antonio lawyer Stanley Rosenberg, a spokesman for the group that purchased Crossroads in July.
“We have made some changes, and we're going to try to succeed in making it a desirable place for small businesses,” Rosenberg said.
Crossroads will become Wonderland of the Americas in a ceremony at the mall at 10 a.m. next Thursday.
It will undergo a renovation, get new lighting and will get more security as part of the change, Rosenberg said.
The new owners are working to extend leases with the current tenants, he said, and the Santikos Bijou at Crossroads movie theater, an art house theater that serves food, will stay.
The new business model will involve wooing local businesses that can't afford space at a traditional mall, Rosenberg said.
There also are plans to approach Latin American retailers that have name recognition in San Antonio and convince them to open locations in Wonderland of the Americas, he said.
In the 1960s, Wonderland was an unrivaled shopping center on San Antonio's northern reaches, said Al Aguilar, chairman and CEO of Creative Civilization, the marketing firm promoting Wonderland of the Americas. In the mid-1980s, it was reborn as Crossroads, Aguilar said, but the mall always has been a retail operation.
Over the next few months, he said, it will transform into a community center that hosts concerts and festivals and features medical facilities and children's play areas. There will be a small business incubator that provides support services to tenants.
“Not only is it a new name, but it is a whole new personification of the relationship this mall will have with the community as a whole,” Aguilar said. “People from all parts of the community will come there for a very unique experience, unlike any other mall or shopping center in the San Antonio area.”
The mall has maintained its large tenants, including a SuperTarget, Burlington Coat Factory, Hobby Lobby and a Stein Mart. But Chuck Siegel, president of Rohde, Ottmers & Siegel Realty Inc., said big stores on the mall's exterior don't help tenants inside.
“The big anchors like Target and Burlington do well, but they don't generate traffic going into the mall,” Siegel said.
At least 50 percent of the mall's main floor is empty, he said.
Crossroads still is at a viable location on major roadways and near the Medical Center, said Oscar Montemayor, director of leasing for Wonderland of the Americas.
“We see great value, not only in the real estate, but in the buildings,” Montemayor said.
Crossroads also is home to two 40,000-square-foot conference facilities leased by Norris Conference Centers. President David Norris said his company will maintain its presence in the mall.
There's 630,718 square feet of leasable space in the shopping center, Montemayor said, but he didn't know the mall's current occupancy. A new tenant, a bridal store called Letty's, is moving into a 3,835-square-foot space, he said.
Kim Gatley, vice president and director of research at NAI REOC Partners, said the mall was at 83 percent occupancy before it was sold this summer, and hasn't had any significant leasing activity since.
If Wonderland of the Americas is a success, it will be good for that part of town, but won't have a massive impact, Gatley said.
“I don't see it as a dramatic shift one way or the other,” she said. “I mean, the mall itself is not dragging down the retail market in the Northwest. The Northwest is a fairly strong market, and getting a few new tenants in is not going to swing the retail market one way or the other. It will bring more traffic to that particular intersection and revive that mall as a consumer area.”
Indoor shopping malls are expensive to maintain, Siegel said, and as cities expand, high-dollar customers move out to newer suburbs.
In San Antonio, that means more high-end retail is moving nearer that customer, setting up shop on the northern stretches of Loop 1604 and leaving centers like Crossroads far away from their traditional customer base.
Malls all over the country are being repurposed, Siegel said. He pointed to Rackspace Hosting Inc. moving its headquarters into the former Windsor Park Mall in Windcrest as an example of new uses for shopping malls.
The idea of dropping rents and turning what had been a traditional shopping mall into a value shopping center isn't new, but it is new to San Antonio, he said.
“I can't say that there's another mall in San Antonio that has been changed to this type of operation,” he said. “It all is going to depend on their ability to get the type of tenants who can bring in the product that fits the pocketbook of the consumer who will shop in that area.”
http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/local/Wonderland_name_is_back_for_local_mall.html