Wine Seller Pops Cork on 20,000-SF Lease

MILFORD, CT-Southington Wines & Spirit Co. has signed a 20,000-square-foot lease at Stonemar Properties’ Milford Plaza here. The 15-year lease is for space left by Mandees and Jo-Ann Fabrics & Crafts, which consolidated into multiple spaces within the power center.

Southington Wines’ signing brings Milford Plaza’s occupancy to 94%, says Stonemark CEO Jonathan Gould in a release. It follows 2010’s deals for 9,000 square feet by Dollar Tree Stores Inc. in a 10-year lease and a 50,000-square-foot renewal by Bob’s Stores for five years.

The 181,000-square-foot Milford Plaza is a third of a mile from the 1.4-million-square-foot Connecticut Post Plaza, in keeping with New York City-based Stonemar’s strategy of locating near major regional centers. While malls serve as magnets for the area’s shoppers, they tend not to be rivals to Stonemar’s tenants, Gould told GlobeSt.com this past July.

“Generally, mall tenants are not competing head-to-head with power center or grocery center tenants,” Gould said last year. “They have different requirements and different cost structures. In most cases, the malls that are in place today are very well established; they may have gone into business 25 or 35 years ago.”