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Tuesday, March 13, 2007
How do you save a shopping center?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With the expansion of the Kedron Village shopping center last year, older Peachtree City shopping centers, like Braelinn Village, are beginning to show their age.
Not only do they lack the more aesthetic “village” design of newer centers, but in the case of Braelinn Village, the 18-year-old shopping center seems to have suffered from inconsistent and absentee ownership during the last three years.
Braelinn Village is presently owned by Maryland-based ABS Capital Management, which bought the 226,552-square-foot center in 2005 for $23.9 million from Florida-based Regency Centers. Regency had purchased Braelinn Village from Atlanta-based Branch Properties in 2004 as part of a larger deal and immediately put it on the market.
Though Braelinn Village retains its original anchors, Kroger and Kmart, the center has lost several smaller tenants and presently has up to nine spaces available.
“The difficulty there is we have about 80,000 square feet of shops, which is more than double what other centers in our portfolio have,” said Tom Thompson, director of leasing for Marietta-based Retail Planning Corp., which manages the center for ABS. “It’s really a neighborhood and not a regional location.”
Beginning this year, Thompson said Retail Planning will be overseeing upgrades to both the buildings and the parking lot at Braelinn Village.
That’s good news to Slender Lady owner Angie McCarl, who has leased 3,000 square feet in Braelinn Village for four years. At the very least, McCarl said, the center needs better signage.
“The signage is so poor; it doesn’t say who’s here,” McCarl said. “It just looks like we’re the entrance to another subdivision.”
Do you ever go to Braelinn Village? Why or why not? What do you think would make Braelinn Village a more appealing place to shop or own a business?
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