Laveen Retail Activity Heating Up!!!

Here's what we know:  Scooptacular has opened in the old Cold Stone location near Fry's and Starbuck's.  The bonus here is that this is a Laveen family-owned homemade ice cream shop.  From what I've heard about their soft opening yesterday (or is it a soft serve opening), they are amazing!  And judging by friends' facebook status updates, it's worth taking more than one trip per day.  I kid you not.  Just go to the Laveen page (linked on the right) and see what people are saying.  If only I were an ice cream fan....

L.A. Fitness is finally finishing construction at the SW corner of Baseline/51st Avenue.  The company's targeted construction schedule is nine months, which I think would put them at an early fall 2010 opening.  This is exciting for most of us, not to mention a great sign of the times for Laveen.  L.A. Fitness is usually quite picky when it comes to evaluating market demand.  And if only you knew all the issues that could have killed this deal....  You've got to hand it to Terrazona for making this happen.  (Speaking of Terrazona, please stay tuned for further updates.)

You've probably seen the signs for Goodwill and Mi Pueblo Supermercado in the old Mervyn's building at Southern/35th Avenue.  Both are confirmed as future tenants in the otherwise mostly empty space.  Also, I learned today that a Pizza Patron is expected to move into the small strip of stores closest to the corner (end cap near US Bank).  And then I had to dig a little deeper for info about a yet unfamiliar concept, dd's Discounts, which is planning to build their store adjacent to the Goodwill.

Last but not least, let's go back to Baseline/51st Avenue.  The Safeway shopping center will soon be full, according to the owners, Evergreen.  TheraPro and Stewart Chiropractic have both committed to occupying the inline spaces in the 'elbow' of the shopping center, and the word on the streets is that a financial services company is eying the space as well -- again, a great indicator of Laveen's economic vitality, I can hardly wait to share further details.  And didn't I say that the space was nearly full?  Yes, how about the end cap.....

As you all know, we were expecting a Denny's to move into the end cap location (near Sonic), but the Denny's franchisee decided not to move forward on the deal.  Logically, I thought this was perhaps an opportunity to get something nicer than Denny's -- it's a great restaurant site, after all -- but there just isn't much opportunity for a restaurant in that location at the moment.  This is for a variety of reasons that I will cover later.  But for now, let's just be glad that the space is being considered primarily as a dentist's office, and secondarily as a potential restaurant location......  That's right, there is a potential restaurant user still considering this location, although I cannot share the details.  Soon, my friends... Soon.  In the mean time, please accept my apology for slacking on the retail updates and know to expect much more going forward.

P.S.  If this kind of subject matter is particularly interesting to you, what would you say to a quick Saturday morning retail workshop in the next few months?  I bet we could get several of our property owners/managers together to discuss things like space requirements, demographics, investment considerations, location, location, location, and other related subjects.  Anyone in?  If so, I'll start putting something together.  And if you think you even might have a bit of an entrepreneurial bug, we could perhaps expand the scope to be a small business workshop....  You game?