The Outlets at Alliance will be located north of Cabela’s.
Scott Nishimura snishimura@bizpress.net
Woodmont plans a 350,000-square-foot retail outlet center in the Alliance Corridor just north of the gigantic Cabela’s store.
Woodmont Land Co. – land acquisition arm for the Fort Worth-based Woodmont Outlets – has entered a contract to buy 45 acres at Interstate 35W just north of Texas 170 from the Alliance developer Hillwood, Woodmont and Hillwood announced.
Groundbreaking for the Outlets at Alliance is scheduled this fall, and the center is scheduled to open in the fall of 2015. The center will have more than 50 outlet and value retail brand stores and more than 1,500 parking spaces.
“There’s just so much activity in the (Alliance) corridor, that there’s a natural market that’s been created there,” Lisa Wagner, partner at EWB Development of Vermont, the marketing and leasing agent for the property, said in an interview.
The 350,000 square feet is the first of two phases planned, she said. It’s not yet clear how much of the 45 acres the first phase will cover, or how large the second phase might be, she said.
The development group unveiled the project in December at an International Council of Shopping Centers meeting, she said. Stephen Coslik, Woodmont Co.’s chairman, mentioned the upcoming development in a presentation last week at the Greater Fort Worth Real Estate Council’s annual commercial real estate forecast.
The site plan shows as many as eight buildings ranging in size from 25,000 square feet to 65,000 square feet. The development group hasn’t yet announced any tenants. Wagner said “it’s typical” for such a project to have three or four anchors.
Marketing materials for the center tout its access to I-35, proximity to the “retail halo of a top-producing Cabela’s,” the Alliance Corridor’s fast-growing employer and residential base, the population of the broader region, and the area’s big tourism base.
The development team will pitch the center to “higher-end brands, because the market demographics in Fort Worth are extremely strong,” Wagner said. “I’m not talking about luxury brands; I’m talking about really good global brands.”
While it’s difficult to get into the Alliance Corridor from other parts of the area, Wagner said that doesn’t detract from the appeal of the site.
“We feel there is plenty of traffic on that highway,” she said. “The traffic counts, the population of Fort Worth, and some modicum of tourism is going to be enough to make that center successful.”
The development group has had a “phenomenal response” so far from prospective tenants since unveiling the plans, she said.
EWB estimates there’s an average daily traffic count of 85,000 “in front of the site.” Alliance is home to 320 companies, more than 31,000 employees, and more than 7,700 single-family homes. Several million tourists visit the area annually, EWB estimated.
The Cabela’s has “a head-turning customer count of approximately 3.5 million annually,” EWB’s marketing materials say. “The No. 2 store in the chain, Alliance-Fort Worth’s Cabela’s reported a 35,000-per-day traffic count in 2011.”
“Fort Worth has long deserved an outlet center of its own,” Coslik said in a release. “With an affluent population of nearly 2.5 million, and the explosive growth and prosperity of this region, we feel confident in saying that this will be a very successful center.” Woodmont Land Co. plans a 350,000-square-foot retail outlet center in the Alliance Corridor just north of the gigantic Cabela’s store, the Fort Worth developer, its marketing and leasing agent, and Hillwood confirmed.