Scott Nishimura snishimura@bizpress.net
You may have noticed: they’ve torn the front off the former Barnes & Noble bookstore at University Park Village in Fort Worth. Susan Holland, the shopping center’s general manager, says Glimcher Realty Trust – University Park Village’s Columbus, Ohio owner – is a few weeks away from nailing down tenants to take over the space. Starbucks, which was Barnes & Noble’s next-door neighbor, is moving to the front of the center and taking over the former Menchie’s yogurt shop space, Holland said.
Glimcher is taking the combined 25,000 square feet of the Barnes & Noble and Starbucks spaces and cutting them – at this point – into four stalls for specialty retailers and service providers, Holland said. The stores will have 18-foot-high windows fronting the parking lot, she said. Look for tenants that are new on the scene locally, Holland said. “The tenants that are coming are first to the market, and they’re national tenants,” she said.
Asked what kinds of retailers, she said, “they’re not restaurants. They’re more apparel and service.” Glimcher wants to turn the space over to the tenants in time for them to begin construction in May, with openings as early as September, she said. Elsewhere in the center, Nine West is leaving its space, she said. The shopping center’s leasing team is talking to another national tenant about that space. Barnes & Noble said in the fall it would close its University Park Village and Sundance Square stores downtown by January.