The allure of NorthPark Center

as we talked to commercial real estate experts, we heard it over and over: NorthPark Center is one of the top five malls in the country.

“There’s a lot to be said for the power that NorthPark has,” says David Shelton, who places NorthPark in the top tier in terms of sales and co-tenancy, or mix of retailers — both middle-market fashion and extreme high-end boutique retailers.

“and tenancy drives a lot of decisions that retailers will make,” Shelton says.

actually, says Derek Wood, NorthPark Center’s leasing director, “we’re no. 7.” That’s the ranking he derives from the center’s amount of sales per square foot. It’s an even more impressive number if you consider that “all the ones bigger than us have a bigger tourism component (California, Florida, Honolulu),” Wood says. “We don’t have gambling; we don’t have oceans; we don’t have mountains.” either way, it means that when any major mall-type retailer is looking to make a move to Dallas, NorthPark will be the first place it looks. So when international retail giant H&M made its announcement this past October about an impending store opening in big D, it came as no surprise that NorthPark would be its first Dallas home.

No. 5, no. 7 potato, potahto.

Wood says H&M was by far the no. 1 most requested store via website feedback. He began talking to H&M in 2003 about opening in NorthPark.

“We’re always looking for the best retailer in each category — the coolest, the hottest, whatever,” Wood says. So H&M was an obvious target.

“When you look at the top global brands, they’re the no. 2 fashion retailer in the world behind Louis Vuitton. They’re the best at fast fashion,” Wood says.

H&M opened a temporary pop-up shop in December, and its NorthPark flagship store is slated to open in October 2011. H&M opened its first u.S. store on the east Coast in 2000, and in 2005 launched its first store on the West Coast. The company’s presence in Dallas has been a long time coming, Shelton says, adding that H&M has been “in this town and looking around this market several times” prior to the NorthPark announcement.

So what was the hold up? Shelton says

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H&M’s goal of getting merchandise quickly in and out of its stores had something to do with it. The retailer seemed more interested in “markets that have more seasonality to them than Texas does.” H&M has more of a presence in areas like the Northeast, he says, “where you get a real summer, a real fall, a real spring, a real winter — where they can really capitalize on those four seasons.”

Another reason H&M is just now launching in Dallas is because, simply, the company could afford to drag its feet. They were “waiting on the perfect real estate move,”Arnold says. “There’s absolutely no reason for them to be in a hurry — one store will not make or break them.”

Plus,Arnold says, owners of major shopping centers such as NorthPark “know what’s coming up and whether a retailer is struggling. H&M is going to sign a longterm deal, so why come in even six months or a year early if they can wait a year for a 15- or 20-year lease?”

That’s exactly what happened in the case of the NorthPark lease. The future location of H&M’s 24,000-square-foot flagship store in the mall is “in an area that they were originally proposed to go,” Wood says.By “originally”, he means those talks with H&M since 2003.

The new space hadn’t been announced at press time. It’s not Robb and Stuckey’s former space, by the way — Webb says there will be “some movement” before H&M moves in — but once its location is made known, “it will all make sense” in terms of NorthPark’s strategic layout, Webb says.

Perhaps you’ve noticed the center’s strategic layout, which Webb calls “cluster retailing”? The layout strategy solidified after NorthPark’s May 2006 expansion, which doubled the mall’s size.

Essentially, stores are grouped by theme: luxury stores near Neiman Marcus; children’s stores on the lower level between Macy’s and the escalators; teen and tween stores around the food court and AMC movie theater; Baby Boomer favorites on the lower level near Nordstrom; 20- and 30-something finds on the upper level as customers turn the corner from the teen hallway; and “the best of what you find in every shopping center” between Dillard’s and Macy’s, Webb says.

Express moved to that hallway recently, and it wasn’t an accident, Webb says.

“Their lease was up, and that’s where they belong,” he says. “The biggest thing

Homegrown Hits

These restaurants have Dallas roots, and now they’re sprouting all over the map.

RUDY’S BAR-B-Q rudys.com

FIRST RESTAURANT 1989 in Leon Springs, Texas; first in North Texas was Denton in May 2004, followed by Frisco in 2007 and Arlington in October 2010

TOTAL RESTAURANTS 29

COMPANY PHILOSOPHY The full name is Rudy’s Country Store and Bar-B-Q, and every location has both a restaurant and a gas station, which “makes us a little unique,” says East Dallas resident Lauren Trajan, whose father, Robert Wolf, is the North Texas franchise owner. The menu is simple — meat by the half pound plus sandwiches, sides and desserts — and dining is casual and family-friendly.

EXPANSION PLANS Because gasoline is part of the restaurant’s concept, “we require certain permitting, so it’s a little restrictive where we can go,” Trajan says. Rudy’s searches for at least one acre, usually closer to two, and always purchases land to build its store and restaurant. “We don’t lease,” she says. All of this adds up to difficulties in opening an urban location because urban land is usually built out. However, because Trajan lives in East Dallas, opening a location here “is my hope. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do my best.” Taking over a former gas station could be a possibility in the future, she says. “Nothing’s absolute, so we’ll try and make something work if we think it’s best for us.” The Dallas fan base is growing, but “it’s so far in the future, I just don’t want to get excited about it,” Trajan says. One new restaurant every three years “is probably a good pace,” she says.