U-City, Shadle Will Undertake ‘De-Malling’ Aging Shopping Centers Plan Changes In Efforts To Remain Competitive

Two aging Spokane shopping centers will strip down to meet the challenge of bigger, new supermalls.

Managers of University City Shopping Center in the Spokane Valley and Shadle Center on the North Side say they will reposition their properties to fill consumer needs the malls can’t.

The plans to revitalize Shadle Center and U-City fit in with a national trend called “de-malling” in which aging malls are remodeled as strips anchored by big tenants such as discount retailers or grocery stores.

The mix, said David Peterson, vice president of Goodale and Barbieri Group of Cos., will distinguish a U-City from a regional mall like the Spokane Valley Mall under construction at Sullivan and Interstate 90.

That project, developed by Salt Lake City-based JP Realty Inc., is due to open Aug. 20, 1997.

Peterson said the difference between the smaller strip mall and the supermall is the energy needed for a shopping trip.

When consumers travel to a regional mall, he said, it’s a big deal. They budget time and money. It’s as much a recreational event as it is a shopping trip.

However, he said of the new plans for U-City, “You’re not making a major decision to drive to this type of arrangement.”

The stores at U-City will be the type that people rush into and out of two to three times per week, he said. “These are retailers that generate a lot of shopping trips.”

The plan is to remodel U-City as a strip, with eight to 10 discount retailers anchoring it on the east and west ends. In the center, between J.C. Penney and Lamonts’, there would be about 64,000 square feet of space for specialty shops.

Peterson said one retailer has committed to 52,000 square feet of the space, and that he has additional “letters of intent” from other tenants. Space also will be available for all the tenants presently leasing space in the mall.

Peterson would not identify the tenants he’s talking to, but said Taco Bell will lease space in a retail pad on the northeast corner of the parking lot. Four other retail pads fronting Sprague will total about 22,000 square feet.

Also, G&B has had discussions with a company interested in building a discount theater with three cinemas at U-City, but nothing has been signed.

On Spokane’s North Side, Shadle Center has been quietly struggling as its neighbor to the east, NorthTown Mall, has grown and thrived.

Now NorthTown’s owner, Seattle-based Sabey Corp., is planning another expansion that will include a multiplex cinema, home store, bookstore and parking.

At Shadle Center, property manager Tomlinson Black Group of Cos. will respond with a smaller scale reconfiguration.

The existing enclosed mall would be demolished. Tenants would be placed in a line, anchored by Safeway, Payless Drug Stores, Newberry’s, Lamont’s and Ernst.

Safeway’s present location also will be demolished and the grocer will move into 53,000 square feet in J.C. Penney’s former site in the center of the strip. The new Safeway building will be built from scratch.

First Interstate Bank will move from its 2,500-square-foot site to a 4,000-square-foot pad fronting Wellesley on the center’s north side, said Dave Black, chief executive officer of Tomlinson Black.

Developers also plan to move Chuck E. Cheese, now located next to Safeway, to a 20,000-square-foot building on the lot’s southwest corner. The pizza restaurant and children’s playland will occupy 12,000 square feet of that building. The rest will be leased to new retailers.

Black did not say what other businesses will locate in that building or in other available retail space. He did say he’d received proposals from national chains, though “nobody big.”

, DataTimes