Prestonwood Town Center will sit on 45 acres that once housed a 1.3-million-sf mall, which was built in 1979 and shuttered in 2001 after losing market share to more modern developments. Archon attempted to revive the site as a high-tech portal and then gave in, razing the gutted mall in the wake of the tech industry's fallout. Since then, about 60 acres of the redevelopment site were sold to Zom Texas for high-end apartments and the balance held in reserve to again seat retail at the crossroads of Beltline, Montfort and Arapaho roads in North Dallas.

"Our goal all along was to have the patience and put the hard work into a product we could be proud of and make a contribution to the community," Dan Watson, Southwest retail director for locally based Archon, tells GlobeSt.com. "We always had conviction about the surrounding demographics and the quality of the real estate. We were always convinced about the quality of the opportunity."

Now, Archon is "a week or two" away from going vertical on the additional thrust of retail--250,000 sf--after locking in national retailers to reverse build-to-suit leases, Watson says. Meanwhile, negotiations are underway for three of five pad sites for sit-down restaurants or banks, which could generate another 15,000 sf, he adds. The all-in development cost isn't readily available.

Watson says Prestonwood Town Center will be open for the 2006 holiday season, with the first round of ribbon cuttings expected in October. The roster now includes Barnes & Noble, Office Depot, Circuit City Stores Inc., Petco, Kirklands, Mattress Giant and Wachovia Bank. On average, leases are being signed with 10-year terms. The quoted rent ranges from the mid teens to high $20 per sf. Robin Smith and Brad Kempson with Archon and Mark Newman and Mark Reeder with Dallas-based Staubach Co. are preleasing Prestonwood Town Center, which will be a single building paralleling Wal-Mart's front door.

Watson says the signed deals are in keeping with his expectations for the development. "Once the retailers understood the redevelopment plan and the site plan--and saw it was going to happen--they were very enthusiastic about being in the center," he says.

The local team for Chattanooga's EMJ Corp. is the general contractor. Good Fulton Farrell of Dallas designed the center, which is still undergoing some last-minute revisions by Archon, a subsidiary of the New York City-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc.