Jonesboro mall bucks trend
Design mixes open-air style with traditional enclosed area
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Edward Klump
3/10/2006
At first blush, The Mall at Turtle Creek in Jonesboro appears to fit in with retail developments going up across the country.
There’s a fancy name, a Main Street theme and a number of upscale tenants.
But this $107 million, 760,000-square-foot project is not ordinary.
Turtle Creek likely will be the only enclosed mall to open in the United States this year, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.
“We’re either... cutting edge and very smart or awful dumb because we’ve gone against the trend,” said Bruce Burrow of Jonesboro-based MBC Holdings, one of Turtle Creek’s developers.
Open-air centers are that trend. Burrow’s firm hopes to develop an 850,000-squarefoot, entertainment-oriented open-air center in North Little Rock known as The Shoppes at North Hills, which is on hold because of pending litigation.
Open-air developments focused on retail make sense in states with mild winters such as Arizona, California and Florida, he said, but the concept seems to discourage browsing from one store to another when the weather is cold or wet.
So in planning a new center for Jonesboro, MBC Holdings teamed up with David Hocker & Associates of Owensboro, Ky., to fashion a mall that combines open-air characteristics with attributes found in a traditional mall.
The resulting center will have three main anchors — Dillard’s, J.C. Penney and Target — and smaller anchors — including Barnes & Noble, Bed Bath & Beyond and Circuit City. The mall’s design includes outside entrances for all six of those stores, which then lead into a main corridor that includes a host of smaller retailers. There are several other entrances that lead directly into the mall.
Over time, the shopping center industry has tailored its offerings to suit customers needs, said Adam Epstein, president of Site Analytics Co. in New York. Epstein said he was not familiar with the Jonesboro project but that concepts always change.
“So if this proves to be a success, I’m sure it will become a template for developers around the country,” Epstein said. “Everybody’s always looking out for the next great tweak.”
Epstein said open-air centers have been successful in cold climates as well as warm ones.
Michael Beyard, senior resident fellow for retail and entertainment at the Urban Land Institute, said hybrid centers that combine various retail enticements are cutting edge.
J.C. Penney and Target opened at The Mall at Turtle Creek in October, and much of the rest of the mall is scheduled to open March 29. Burrow said the mall’s tenant lineup will help keep many shoppers in northeast Arkansas instead of losing them to Memphis.
“We were able to get a lineup of tenants that you wouldn’t normally see in a city the size of Jonesboro,” he said. As of 2000, Jonesboro had a population of more than 55,000.
Besides the anchors, Turtle Creek’s other high-profile tenants will include retailers Ann Taylor Loft, Coldwater Creek, J. Jill, Jos A. Bank Clothiers and Victoria’s Secret and some restaurants, such as Shorty Small’s. There will be a center court, a food court and a play area for children. A curving main corridor with high ceilings, marble floor and
natural light will make the mall an enjoyable place to spend time, Burrow said.
There also will be a shortterm parking area in front of certain retailers. The center’s stores will all have just one story except for Dillard’s, which will be two stories.
The mall is taking some tenants, including Dillard’s and J.C. Penney, from Indian Mall, Jonesboro’s smaller existing mall. Attempts to reach that mall’s owner, Warmack & Co. of Texarkana, Texas, were unsuccessful Thursday.
Little Rock-based Dillard’s Inc. is pleased about its move to Turtle Creek.
“We have enjoyed tremendous success in Jonesboro and wanted to offer our customers there an even better shopping experience,” said Julie Bull, a Dillard’s spokesman. “This new store will be much larger and will feature our latest advances in store design. It will be beautiful.”
Burrow said the project was to benefit from what is called tax-increment financing wherein property taxes are diverted from school district use for a period to aid development.
The financing concept is being debated across the state.
Mayor Doug Formon said Turtle Creek will draw shoppers from northeast Arkansas and southeast Missouri.
“It’s just a beautiful, beautiful facility,” he said. “We’re excited about it.”
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