|
Daniel Island center seeks to draw upscale retailers
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
The Daniel Island Co. and a Charlotte, N.C., developer hope to give Charleston retail an upscale nudge with an open-air lifestyle center on Daniel Island.
The Town Square at Daniel Island, a 450,000-square-foot mixed-use project that would include stores, restaurants, entertainment venues, residences and a hotel, is planned for a site off Interstate 526 at River Landing Drive.
The undertaking is in the preliminary stages and prospective tenants are beginning to visit the property, said Bob Spratt, president of Charlotte-based Hill Partners Inc.
Neither Spratt nor officials with The Daniel Island Co. would name companies interested in the project.
“It’s still very speculative,” said Julie Dombrowski, spokeswoman for The Daniel Island Co. “I know they’re looking at upscale retailers.”
That has area consumers marking their wish lists for high-end department stores and retailers and restaurants they visit in larger cities.
“I think what we’re looking at is an opportunity to create a new retail destination in the area that would attract a level of retailer that is not already in this area,” Dombrowski said. “The timing hopefully is right for some of these people to consider a Charleston location.”
The island of approximately 5,000 residents already has a good base of restaurants and some retail, which is mostly service-oriented, she said. The island is expected to have as many 15,000 residents in 10 years.
Spratt’s company has been considering the Charleston area for a number of years, he said. Hill Partners specializes in mixed-use projects and has developed or redeveloped a number of prominent specialty retail projects around the country.
The continued evolution and growth of the market, plus the number of visitors and new residents being attracted to Daniel Island and the East Cooper area, were among the reasons Hill Partners was attracted to the project, he said.
“The Daniel Island Co. has done a tremendous job on the overall master-planning, and each part of that master plan continues to evolve in a very beneficial way, from our perspective,” Spratt said. “It’s already an event-proven location with the Family Circle Cup and Charleston Battery soccer. There’s plenty of opportunity for the right level of specialty retail and there’s a great opportunity for restaurants that aren’t in the market.”
Hill Partners has two other S.C. lifestyle centers under its belt: Barefoot Landing, a waterfront shopping, dining and entertainment venue in North Myrtle Beach; and The Village at Sandhill in Columbia.
Tenants at Barefoot Landing include House of Blues, Greg Norman’s Australian Grill and White House/Black Market. Hill Partners is currently leading the remerchandising and leasing of Barefoot Landing to include more upscale tenants.
The Village at Sandhill anchors a 300-acre master-planned development with tenants including Talbots, Bombay Co. and Bluepoint Ocean Grill.
Hill Partners’ other recent projects include The Old Post Office Pavilion in Washington, D.C., and The Town Center at Levis Commons in Perrysburg, Ohio.
Ellen Davis, spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation, said lifestyle centers are typically outdoor malls that tend to focus on high-end customers who want to have a good experience when they go shopping.
“You tend to have well-landscaped grounds, nice flooring and retailers that cater to extravagant tastes,” Davis said. “Oftentimes, lifestyle centers can be main attractions. They can be a destination. Lifestyle centers are often built in conjunction with new residential development in the area.”
The Town Square at Daniel Island as planned would be about 20,000 square feet larger than Mount Pleasant’s Towne Centre and would include 400 high-end apartments.
The project was revealed to retailers in May at an annual conference of the International Council of Shopping Centers in Las Vegas, Spratt said. He said the development could attract national and regional tenants as well as locally owned stores.
Doug Coupe, president of the Daniel Island Business Association, said it would be phenomenal for island residents, businesses and the rest of the Lowcounty to see the town center project come to fruition.
“It would benefit all members of the Lowcountry and offer them a retail opportunity that really is not in this area yet,” Coupe said. “It would really help make Daniel Island more of a destination.”
Economist Al Parish, director of the Center for Economic Forecasting at Charleston Southern University, said the town center could succeed in attracting upscale, national retailers if it can draw people from outside Daniel Island.
“Considering that you could draw people from east of the Cooper, I think it’s reasonable,” Parish said. “Daniel Island certainly has the income level, but it doesn’t have the population to support a Nordstrom on its own.”
Davis of the NRF said retailers conduct a tremendous amount of research before entering a new market, looking at things such as population, income levels, housing values, potential employee base and tax breaks or other incentives.
“The other component is, many retailers have become saturated in some areas of the country,” Davis said.
“Do you really need another high-end retailer on 5th Avenue in New York City, or would you be better off purchasing or renting space in an area where there are fewer high-end retailers? What we’re finding is, many retailers are also using catalog and Web site sales to determine where their shoppers live. The last thing many towns in America need is another empty store.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@charlestonbusiness.com.
|
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version