Fayetteville Mall Tops List of NWA Commercial Centers

At 822,232 SF, the Northwest Arkansas Mall is more than twice the size of its nearest competitor

Fayetteville’s Northwest Arkansas Mall remains the area’s heavyweight when it comes to commercial business space.

The mall is No. 1 on the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal’s 1999 list of office and retail list spaces after occupying the same spot in 1998 with 822,232 SF. Alice Bishop, the mall’s general manager, says the key was planning.

And those plans do not call for the Northwest Arkansas mall to try to compete with Fort Smith’s Central Mall, the largest mall in the state with more than 1 million SF.

“When we remodeled in 1997, we planned for the future,” Bishop says. “Right now we don’t have any plans for additional expansions in the future, but we are going to look at some things in terms of the merchandise mix that we want to change. We want to fill in some gaps.”

Bishop says, as tenant leases turn over, the mall, at 4201 N. Shiloh Drive, will focus on some of the stores it feels it’s lacking. A Banana Republic and a sit-down restaurant are high priorities, and the mall is close to getting a lease signed for an Abercrombie & Fitch clothing store, which would occupy 10,000 SF.

The Children’s Place, a children’s clothing store, recently filled a needed niche when it leased 4,000 SF of the mall’s space. But overall, the mall’s occupancy rate is down 2 percent, from 94 percent to 92 percent.

“You’re going to see fluctuations,” Bishop says. “For it to vary 2 percent, that’s not much at all.”

Ozark Center Point Place, formerly Ozark Factory Outlet Stores, at 5320 W. Sunset Ave. in Springdale leapfrogged over Rogers’ Dixieland Mall and Fayetteville’s Fiesta Square Shopping Center, going from 202,000 SF to 352,000 SF. A Cracker Barrel Old Country Store was among the additions that boosted Center Point Place.

Dixieland (350,000 SF), at 100 N. Dixieland Road, and Fiesta Square (275,000 SF), at 3000 N. College Ave., remained the same in size although Dixieland’s occupancy rate increased from 85 percent to 90 percent.

“We just recently remodeled the entire outside of the mall and added Goody’s Department Store,” says John Stuckey, whose Gottlieb Corp. owns Dixieland. “We also just had Bath & Body Works come in, and I am working with four or five national retailers for the mall. We have been focusing on national retailers, and there’s been a lot of interest.”

Rounding out the shopping centers that top 100,000 SF are Evelyn Hills Shopping Center (157,511 SF) at 1300 N. College Ave. in Fayetteville, Sunset Square Shopping Center (155,000 SF) at 2940 W. Sunset Ave. in Springdale, Market Court (131,000 SF) at 3180 N. College Ave. in Fayetteville and the Northwest Village Shopping Center (100,507 SF) at 4100 N. College Ave. in Fayetteville.

Both Sunset Square and Northwest Village are completely leased, and Market Court has a 94 percent occupancy rate. Evelyn Hills was affected by the recent departure of Montgomery Ward Department Store, but Weingarter Realty Investors of Houston, which owns the property, already has several prospective tenants to replace that tenant.

Sunset Square, at 2940 W. Sunset Ave. in Springdale, stands to climb higher in next year’s list. Besides being located on a busy highway, having competitive prices and traffic lights at both ends of the property, which generates more walk-in traffic, Sunset Square’s owners are looking to expand.

Bob Downum, executive broker and co-owner with Taylor & Associates Real Estate Co. of Springdale, says his company’s in the process of negotiating with two prospective tenants for two new buildings on the site.

“The unimproved acreage is 7.5 acres on the back end of the property,” Downum says. “We’re in the process of negotiating with a large restaurant that would occupy a new 8,000-SF building and another company that would occupy another 8,000-SF building.”

Rain Tree Business Center (92,000) at 908 S. Walton Blvd. in Bentonville and Southgate Shopping Center (79,000) at 1604 Eighth St. in Rogers round out the top 10.

Sam Mathias, owner of Mathias Properties, is the undisputed king of local retail lease-space owners with 790,747 SF of the largest properties. Stuckey is second with 695,700 SF.