The Face Place Spa Opened in Lincoln NE
SouthPointe Pavilions’ latest tenant, The Face Place Spa, opened Monday in space formerly occupied by Pixi Chix.
Though the tenant is a small local day spa, it’s a noteworthy addition, because it means SouthPointe is now 100 percent leased at a time when mall vacancies nationwide are skyrocketing.
“We have very tired leasing agents,” joked Julie Lattimer, SouthPointe’s marketing director.
SouthPointe’s leasing agents have probably been working harder to keep tenants than to find them.
SouthPointe has stayed full largely because national retailers have not defected, as they have from other malls, including Lincoln’s Westfield Gateway.
According to Reis, a commercial real estate analysis firm, mall vacancies approached 10 percent nationwide in the first quarter.
In Lincoln, the overall retail vacancy rate was 11.1 at the end of March, up from 10.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 and up from 8 percent at the same time last year, according to a quarterly report from Grubb & Ellis Pacific Realty.
Kent Thompson, owner of Coldwell Banker Commercial Thompson Realty Group, said what SouthPointe has been able to do is nothing short of amazing.
“That shopping center is one of the top-performing shopping centers in the country,” Thompson said.
A big reason vacancy rates are climbing is that national retailers have cut back significantly.
“Retail is just going to be down for a long time,” Thompson said.
“The big issue is that national people are not willing to step out yet,” he said. “We’re a long way from that.”
Thompson has one of the few recent retail success stories: Earlier this month he announced that Rod Kush will open a 40,000-square-foot furniture store in the former Kmart building near 56th and Nebraska 2 — a building that has been vacant since Thompson and some partners bought it more than five years ago.
That occurred in the second quarter of this year. The Grubb & Ellis report noted that despite the uptick in vacancy, the first quarter was otherwise uneventful for retail, with no major openings or closings.
The report described the Lincoln market as “maintaining status quo.”
“Lincoln has remained below the radar … with little activity to note during the quarter,” the report said
The report noted that there have been small retail stores that have gone out of business, “but overall, Lincoln is surviving the recession fairly well.”
Even at Westfield Gateway, which has seen major tenants such as Steve & Barry’s and Circuit City, along with several smaller ones leave in the past year, things are looking up.
“I think we’ve started to get some things going in the right direction,” said Marketing Director Ryan Bouc.
A perfume shop called Perfume Point opened up last month next door to Lids, while a local shop that services computers and sells used ones, 123 System Solutions, is opening in the former Holway Formal Wear spot on the lower level.
Bouc said the mall also has plans for empty space in the food court that could mean new stores opening before the end of the year if all goes as planned.
While retail vacancy went up, the office vacancy rates in Lincoln actually decreased slightly in the first quarter — from 12.4 percent to 11.9 percent — according to the Grubb & Ellis report.
Industrial vacancy increased from 8.4 percent to 8.7 percent in the first quarter. That is better than the first quarter of 2008, when the rate was 9.5 percent.
Studio 786 Salon & Day Spa now open
