Germantown Parkway Gets More Retail

Parkway Collection to resemble nearby center

ANDY MEEK

The Daily News

More retail options are getting set to open along Germantown Parkway, joining scores of shopping centers, stores and the regional mall that already line the busy Memphis street.

Real estate veteran Price Ford, chief manager of Cypress Realty Holdings Co., has plans on the drawing board for a 21,000-square-foot shopping center at 1400 N. Germantown Parkway called Parkway Collection. The project is just down the road from Fords Parkway Place center at 1250 N. Germantown.

Similar style. For his newest project, Ford is duplicating the upscale look and feel of Parkway Place, a development that includes Bonefish Grill and Sweet Peppers Deli. He said the new shopping center, at Germantown Parkway and Club Parkway, is about 50 percent pre-leased.

It will be a mix of both national and local tenants, said Ford, principal broker and principal of Ford-Lurie Commercial Realty Associates. And because of the quality of the development, well tend to have more upscale retail tenants that want a presence on Germantown Parkway. It offers pretty substantial visibility and substantial ingress and egress, which is not always the case there.

A building permit for $1.2 million was issued for the project April 5, according to The Daily News Online, www.memphisdailynews.com. The new center is north of Parkway Place and Methodist Minor Medical Center. Grinder Taber & Grinder Inc. is the general contractor for the project.

Ford said the shopping center will be delivered to tenants in October. Ford-Lurie Commercial Realty Associates is the projects developer, and Cypress Realty Holdings Co. LLC is the property owner.

Retail needs. Danny Buring, a broker with The Shopping Center Group Inc., said although the Germantown Parkway market is getting close to the saturation point, the type of product Ford is looking to develop still meets a need in the area.

A well-located shopping center is going to do well, and in general, these things are still successful in that area, he said. While the rest of the real estate markets office, industrial and multifamily have been through good and bad cycles, retails been running hard for almost 10 years, and we havent seen a downturn since probably 92 or 93.

Weve probably got a couple of million square feet out there, and the markets been strong, theres good occupancy out there and good rents I mean, at some point were going to hit a wall, but we havent hit it yet.

Nearby development. Other major projects nearby include a new Ethan Allen store being built at 2397 N. Germantown, part of a growing retail development that includes Kohls, Ashley Furniture HomeStore and Costco. Nearby, a Toyota dealership is under construction, and between the dealership and Kohls, Buring said theres room for a 200,000-square-foot shopping center.

The new 58,000-square-foot Toyota dealership, which will be completed this fall, will be heavily landscaped and include Italian tile floors and large vehicle display areas. Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. is shifting its existing store in Cordova to the new site to be closer to Wolfchase Galleria.

Not far from Fords project, developer Gary Myers has several acres under contract across the street from Kohls, at 2335 N. Germantown. Myers said the property, slated for retail development, should close soon and he said the entire area is still very hot.

Building on a theme. In the meantime, construction is under way on a Danvers restaurant at the site of Fords new Parkway Collection shopping center. As it continues, Ford said, building on the character of Parkway Place will be a major theme of the project.

Were going to really, in a lot of respects, take the retail development thats been so successful for us, where the Bonefish Grill is, and in a smaller degree, with more visibility, create the same thing in a new development, he said.

Ford said remaining space in Parkway Collection, about 11,000 square feet, will be taken up by five to six tenants. And Buring said even though the market is fast reaching the saturation point on that type of product, theres no reason to expect that Parkway Collection wont perform well.

The markets still good, and those unanchored strip centers are still filling up, he said. All things being equal, if its well-located, nicely built and has the right amenities, it should do well.