Shoe Pavilion Expands in TX

The Shoe Pavilion team simultaneously will cut ribbons on three former Ultimate Electronics stores: 31,936 sf at 14060 Dallas Parkway near the Galleria; 31,000 sf at 2727 E. Southlake Blvd.; and 31,138 sf at 2943 Preston Rd. in Frisco. The fourth store, 18,000 sf, will open in November along with the first deliveries for the 930,000-sf Arlington Highlands, now starting to rise at the intersection of Interstate 20 and Matlock Road.

The Ultimate Electronics locations were "all brand-new leases with building owners who got spaces back from the bankruptcy," says Darrell Hernandez, executive vice president and partner in Dallas-based United Commercial Realty/ChainLinks. Though the spaces are larger than the retailer's norm, he tells GlobeSt.com that "the three Ultimate Electronics just allowed them to come in and open three stores at once. When you can do that from a marketing standpoint, it really helps."

Hernandez says Shoe Pavilion is planning to open 10 to 12 stores in North Texas. Deals are at the lease stage for space in Flower Mound and Lewisville and letters of intent pending for openings in the Park Cities area of Dallas, Plano and NorthPark, according to Hernandez. "I think they'd love to be able to open two to three stores at a time," he says, "but it doesn't always work out that way."

Shoe Pavilion's corporate team has affiliates of the Atlanta-based ChainLinks Retail Advisors also searching for sites in Houston and Austin. The retailer's sweet spot is 20,000 sf to 25,000 sf of class A space; and $400,000 to $500,000 for each store's conversion. Until now, the Shoe Pavilion portfolio consisted of 90 stores in California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona.

Hernandez is partnering with UCR's J.D. Robertson for the North Texas site search. Though the quartet of deals has been inked for some time, they've been kept quiet so Shoe Pavilion could finish out the spaces and plan a grand opening for its market entry. The Galleria-area store will open in a Kite Realty Group site, which had Jeff Kittleson with Trammell Crow Co. negotiating its terms. The Retail Connection's John Mathes worked out the deal for Arlington Highlands while Corey Duhon with Shafer Property Co. handled talks for its two Shafer Plaza developments in Southlake and Frisco.