Central Market Coup Jumpstarts $35M-Plus Lifestyle Center

SOUTHLAKE, TX-After an eight-year hold on the land, Cencor Realty Services is ready to begin processing a "north of $35-million" plan for a 29-acre site across from Southlake Town Square. If all goes as planned, a 200,000-sf lifestyle center could break ground in the summer.

The forward push is being made possible by a long-term, 70,000-sf lease setting up the San Antonio-based H-E-B Grocery Co.'s Central Market as the anchor, David Palmer, Cencor's director of development in Dallas, tells GlobeSt.com. He says a master plan for the Shops of Southlake could be ready to put before the city in March. "Central Market and Cencor are very much looking forward to going through the city process," he stresses, "and meeting with the residents of Southlake about the project." He ballparks the project's cost at "north of $35 million."

The 29-acre site takes up the southeast corner of Southlake Boulevard and Carroll Avenue. Southlake Town Square's first phase sits on the northeast corner. The unveiling of the Shops of Southlake's plan comes as the town square's local developer, Cooper & Stebbins Inc., is gearing up for a second phase, signing Barnes & Noble Inc. of New York City as one of its anchors. The two-story, 32,000-sf Barnes & Noble is slated to open in April 2006.

Palmer says the Shops of Southlake is being designed to "complement" new and existing development at Southlake Town Square. The Dallas-based Cencor affiliate, the Weitzman Group, has assigned Michelle Caplan and Earl Harris to prelease the development.

Landing Central Market as the anchor definitely was a coup in the Dallas/Fort Worth marketplace, which already holds three of the seven locations for the grocer's destination fresh-market concept. "We thought for years that this was an excellent site for Central Market and we're very pleased that they came to the same conclusion," Palmer says. "If everything goes as planned, it could be open in late spring 2006."

Charles Hodges of Hodges & Associates in Dallas is designing the Shops of Southlake. Larry Cates of Dallas is the civil engineer; and David Baldwin, the landscape architect.