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IRVINE CO. OPENS NEW PROJECT

Irvine Co. Retail Properties has opened Cherry Orchard, Sunnyvale, Calif., its first retail project outside Southern California.

The center’s first component, a P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, opened in September 2001. The specialty retail center will eventually include 58,000 square feet of retail space, containing 14 service-oriented retailers and restaurants next to a 300-apartment residential development. Also on tap for Cherry Orchard are a Borders, Sprint PCS and a beauty supply shop. Several area food retailers will also move in, including A.G. Ferrari Foods, an Italian food store popular in the San Francisco Bay area, and C.J. Olson Cherries, which sells fresh and dried fruit, chocolate and specialty gift items.

The Irvine Co., a privately held real estate investment firm based in Newport Beach, Calif., owns three regional and 27 neighborhood and community shopping centers, as well as office buildings and apartment complexes.

RETAIL, COMMERCIAL CENTER ON TAP FOR BALTIMORE’S PORT COVINGTON

Starwood Ceruzzi, a Fairfield, Conn.-based retail center developer, is planning a power center for Port Covington, Baltimore, on one of Maryland’s first brownfield sites to be approved for redevelopment. Dubbed Port Covington Shopping Center, the 400,000-square-foot property will occupy the former site of a rail yard of the Western Maryland Railway, more than a mile east of downtown Baltimore’s Harbor area, said Robert Barletta, a spokesman for Starwood Ceruzzi.

“It was a very unique situation to find a site this big in a downtown urban area and be able to build a 400,000-square-foot center and still have on-site parking,” Barletta said.

The center will feature a Wal-Mart and a Sam’s Club, slated to open in April and May, respectively. Starwood also plans to have several smaller retail tenants, but has not said how many or what types.

SUGARLAND TOWN SQUARE UNDER WAY

Work is under way on Sugarland (Texas) Town Square, an upscale retail center that will occupy part of a 32-acre mixed-use project. This, in turn, is a component of a master-planned 9,700-acre community called First Colony. The town square will feature dense Main Street elements — 200,000 square feet of upscale shops topped by some 750,000 square feet of office space. Peter Jacob, director of leasing for Sugarland Properties, the project’s developer, said the company is also putting 60,000 square feet of upscale shop space in the lobby area of an office tower being built there. The whole project hinged on securing a $52 million financing package to build the Sugarland Marriott Town Square and an adjacent conference center. The company broke ground in December on the project’s first phase, which included construction of the shops. The retail portion of the project is expected to be completed by the fall of 2003, along with the conference center and the hotel.

SAN BRUNO, CALIF., CENTER TRANSFORMED INTO SHOPS AT TANFORAN

A $105 million project is transforming the 30-year-old Tanforan Park Shopping Center, San Bruno, Calif., into a 1.5 million-square-foot upscale center that will be called the Shops at Tanforan. Newport Beach, Calif.-based Wattson Breevast is giving the center its first makeover in more than a decade. It will add 331,000 square feet of retail space and a stadium-seating multiplex. The center will also get a new main entrance, facing a not-yet-completed Bay Area Rapid Transit station, which should increase traffic at the center and help draw high-profile tenants. The center’s current anchors include J.C. Penney, Sears and Target. The center now has only a 50 percent occupancy rate, but developers believe the renovation will help lure new tenants and possibly a new anchor. The Shops at Tanforan will open in fall 2003.

STATION PLAZA TO BREAK GROUND

MLP Investments cleared an important hurdle by gaining city approval for its proposed $43 million redevelopment of Station Plaza, Kirkwood, Mo. The mixed-use project will feature 40,000 square feet of ground-level restaurants and retail with 206 residential units located above them. The project will be erected across the street from City Hall. The goal is for the project to become a town center and generate foot traffic for the downtown area.

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