LOCUST GROVE, GA-The 248,000-sf Tanger Outlet Center, which draws three million customers a year from within a 100-mile radius, is about to get bigger. Greensboro, NC-based Tanger Outlet Centers Inc. is investing $6 million, or about $130 per sf, to add 46,000 sf and about a dozen brand-name retailers to the existing property, according to the company.

New retail names at the 60-store center will be Polo Ralph Lauren Factory Store, Nautica, Skechers, Strasburg Children, the Children's Place, Stride Rite Shoes and Kirkland's. Among the existing tenants are Bible Factory, Casual Corner, Samsonite, SAS Shoes, Petite Sophisticate, OshKosh B'Gosh, Easy Spirit, Gap, Rockport, Tommy Hilfiger, Springmaid-Wamsutta, Zales, Hush Puppies and Rack Room Shoes.

The new construction is scheduled for completion in early September, area retail brokers familiar with the project tell GlobeSt.com. The Henry County outlet center is off Interstate 75 at Exit 212, about 35 miles southeast of Downtown Atlanta.

Tanger Outlet Centers, headed by chairman and CEO Stanley K. Tanger, last year sold its 17-year-old, 179,593-sf Dalton outlet center to Atlanta-based Mimms Enterprises for $11.5 million or about $64 per sf, as GlobeSt.com previously reported.

Tangers also made news yesterday with its deal to buy out the two-thirds it does not own in a joint venture of nine outlet centers from partner Blackstone Real Estate Advisors for $282.5 million. The two firms acquired the properties in December 2003 from Charter Oak Partners for $491 million.