FILLING FAST: Goodlett Commons is a 12,600-square-foot retail center in the Goodlett Farms area developed by North Mississippi Real Estate Management LLC. Dunkin’ Donuts and Subway have signed leases to occupy about a quarter of the space. -- RENDERING COURTESY OF TOM TURRI

Goodlett Commons, the retail center that will reintroduce Dunkin’ Donuts to the Memphis market, officially is under way and its developer has announced another national name for the 12,600-square-foot building at the corner of Whitten Road and Goodlett Farms Parkway.

Subway has signed a lease for a restaurant at Goodlett Commons, said Bernard Farber, principal of North Mississippi Real Estate Management LLC (NMREM), the firm developing the center.

Farber’s company has filed a $1.9 million construction loan through First Capital Bank to build Goodlett Commons, according to The Daily News Online, www.memphisdailynews.com, and Subway is the second tenant to sign a lease there following Dunkin’ Donuts.?

Completion of Goodlett Commons is slated for December. The center will sit on a 1.58-acre parcel of land that’s not too far from the Interstate 40 interchange with Whitten Road, an ideal retail and restaurant site in Farber’s estimation.

“The location has a terrific daytime population,” he said. “It’s also close to Bellevue Baptist and en route to Shelby Farms (Park) as well.”

For the masses

Operating as NMREM, Farber and his partner, Robert Allen, bought the land in December 2006 for $121,000 from Goodlett Farms Associates, a development company owned by officials from Belz Enterprises.

The Shelby County Assessor of Property’s 2008 appraisal of the vacant land is $38,600. Gilluly & Associates LLC is the general contractor for the Goodlett Commons project, while Guy Payne and Associates Architects is architect and the Reaves Firm Inc. is engineer.

The retail space will see Dunkin’ Donuts’ re-entry into Memphis with a 2,000-square-foot store in the center. Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin’ Brands Inc., the company that owns the Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin Robbins brands, earlier this year announced plans to open 50 Dunkin’ Donuts shops in the Memphis area.

The launch is part of an aggressive national growth strategy, which includes expanding in existing markets while entering new cities throughout the country, company officials stated in March.

One of its Memphis franchisees is Little Rock-based Sanjanhand Corp., which will bring 14 Dunkin’ Donuts locations to specific parts of Memphis within seven years. Sanjanhand has the franchise contract on a footprint that includes East Memphis, Germantown, Cordova and Collierville, said Maunish Shah, co-owner of Sanjanhand.

“I think we got the best territory inside Memphis,” Shah said, citing the area’s population and median income.

He is especially pleased with the Goodlett Commons location, which should benefit from the high number of nearby office complexes and other businesses.

“The traffic counts, the businesses behind it, the Interstate location, a lot of apartment complexes – it was just a win-win situation,” said Shah, adding that the company is excited about its newest neighbor. “It’s going to work out pretty good with Subway as a tenant.”

Quiet pipeline

Now the goal for NMREM is to lease the remaining space in the center plus a 31,000-square-foot outparcel, a task that falls to leasing agent Gary Shanks of The Shopping Center Group. He said the arrival of Dunkin’ Donuts will be a boon for Goodlett Commons.

“There has been much anticipation of Dunkin’ Donuts’ entry into the Memphis market,” Shanks said. “For them to have chosen our site as one of the first speaks volumes for our development. We are thrilled to have them as a tenant in our center, and in Memphis for that matter.”

With Dunkin’ Donuts taking 2,000 square feet and Subway taking close to 1,400, Shanks is targeting a variety of retail tenants for the remaining space, which can accommodate up to seven users. He said the dynamics of the center and its locale will be conducive to landing the right mix.

“We want to capitalize on the daytime population and the surrounding neighborhoods to the south, as we continue to grow our tenant base,” Shanks said. “Within three miles of our development, the daytime population consists of 3,182 businesses and 50,015 employees. Prospective tenants that will benefit from the high daytime population include service users such as insurance and mortgage offices, doctors, postal service/printing companies and tax services.”

Meanwhile, NMREM is working with Sanjanhand to develop and build additional Dunkin’ Donuts sites, although nothing is definitive and officials at both companies were not ready to discuss specifics.

“We are scheduled to try and do a few more developments,” Farber said. “We have a few more in the pipeline.”