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Shopping Centers Today -> September 2001
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WESTCOR’S PLANS FOR ARIZ. HYBRID REACH FRUITION
By Debra Hazel
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| Chandler (Ariz.) Fashion Center will feature etched-glass and copper handrails. |
Regional malls that take 15 years to be built usually are found in the densely populated Northeast, not in the open spaces of the Southwest. Yet the Oct. 18 grand opening of Chandler (Ariz.) Fashion Center will complete a development process begun in 1986.
Located in the Phoenix metro area at the southwest corner of Chandler Boulevard and Price Freeway, the 1.3 million-square-foot Chandler Fashion Center mall is the heart of a 320-acre urban village including three other retail centers being developed by locally based Westcor Partners.
Westcor took control of 100 acres southeast of Phoenix in 1986, then partnered with a local farming family that owned the remaining land to assemble the plot. But the late 1980s/early 1990s real estate slump and a delay in constructing the Price Freeway stalled construction.
“It just kept getting put off,” said Gilbert W. (Wally) Chester, executive vice president of development for Westcor. The developer eventually contributed to the road construction, as did the state, to get what essentially is an inner beltway for Phoenix built. Development of the retail could then begin.
The centerpiece will be a hybrid mall, with an enclosed portion anchored by Nordstrom, Dillard’s, Robinsons-May and Sears and a 125,000-square-foot open-air retail/entertainment village anchored by a 20-plex Harkins cinema.
The mall will debut about 94% leased, with between 85% and 90% of the space open. Several chains, including Apple Computer, Eddie Bauer Home, Steve Madden and Pottery Barn Kids are locating their first units in Arizona at the mall. The mall will “cluster” its specialty shops, locating similar retailers together to increase convenience for its customers: teen retailers Abercrombie & Fitch and The Buckle are located close to the 10-vendor food court. Mall rents generally are in the $35-$40 per square foot range, with CAM and other extras coming to $15-$16 per square foot.
Chandler Fashion Center is Westcor’s second hybrid mall: Its FlatIron Crossing opened outside Denver last year. While Chandler was well under way by FlatIron’s debut, Chester noted that Westcor did make some changes to Chandler’s village based on that experience. The village is smaller than FlatIron’s in order to shorten the streetscape and is focused on food and entertainment, rather than services.
“We did learn that people won’t go to the mall and associate services like dry cleaning,” Chester said. They still think of enclosed environments as fashion and entertainment. But we could at least bring in accessories. That worked.”
The outdoor village will incorporate a multisensory water feature created by Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Illuminating Concepts, and underwritten by the local light and water utility. The 35-foot-long fountain will be the site of water shows choreographed to music and lighting that can be tailored to special presentations or times of year.
“The fountain is going to knock your socks off. We can have Barney music in the morning, a Christmas presentation and big band music for the seniors,” Chester said. The water will be recycled, he added.
The design, by Dallas-based Omniplan, reflects Chandler’s past and present.
“Chandler is an agricultural county. This mall is built on an old cotton field. We said, ‘Capture the feel of Chandler 100 years ago,’” Chester said.
Native stone, standing seam metal roofs, copper and wood are used throughout. Rustic sandstone column bases will stand on marble floors, and are capped with wooden tops detailed with copper. Handrails of etched glass and copper provide a contemporary counterpoint to the large clay pots holding interior landscaping.
Four main streets link the anchors, Barnes & Noble and the food court. At the end of each street, large “great rooms” resembling grand hotel lobbies will serve as gathering places. An 80-foot wall of glass bounded by sandstone walls will become a focal point for the food court. Parking will accommodate 6,200 cars.
“The mall looks like the Starship Enterprise, with virtually no side walls,” Chester said. “We have every developer’s dream: lots of corners.”
Construction began in fall 1999, and the time frame was just one of the challenges for the company charged with actually building the center, Kitchell Contractors, Phoenix. Another was the inevitable changes made during the construction of such a facility. Coordinating between the architect and developer became critical.
“They decided they were going to change the location of all the kiosks and directional signs. You have to tear up the floors,” said Rod Brown, senior project manager of Kitchell. Making a large amount of glass fit also was a challenge: The preshipped sections had to fit in a precise geometry. Working with the developer and the architect, Kitchell proposed rotating a sloping skylight in another direction to make installation less costly.
Coordination also was critical for leasing: Westcor was building three other centers at the same time. Chandler Festival Power Center, with 538,000 square feet anchored by Lowe’s, PetsMart, Ross, Office Max and Nordstrom Rack opened last year; Chandler Gateway Power Center, a 300,000-square-foot lifestyle center, opens this month. The first phase of the 224,000-square-foot Boulevard Shops, with P.F. Chang’s China Bistro and 19 specialty boutiques, will debut with the mall in October. Expansions are planned for fall 2002 and fall 2004.
“One team did the mall and the attached village; then we had one team for the power centers,” said Frederick Collings, senior vice president of leasing for Westcor. “We all kind of met and concluded how we wanted everything to lay out.”
Additional retail villages, office parks, a hotel and a conference center also are on the drawing boards. To an outsider, all of that retail might seem like overkill; according to Westcor, the region is sorely under-retailed for its size and affluence.
The Southeast Valley comprises about 1 million people, yet “is kind of an area to itself. Fiesta and Superstition Springs Malls are there, but there is no upscale retail,” Collings said.
Chandler and the surrounding East Valley is now the second wealthiest ZIP code in metro Phoenix, largely due to the influx of high-tech companies, including Intel, Microchip, Avnet and Motorola, to the area. An estimated population of 782,000 people will live within a 10-mile radius of the project by 2004, up from 699,000 in 2000, according to Westcor. Average household income within a five-mile radius totaled $71,399.
And Westcor can track the projects even more closely than most developers, given that it is literally building in its own backyard.
“I can’t do a sloppy job in anything I do,” Chester said, laughing, “because I’m going to hear about it from a neighbor.”
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