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New shopping center battles for tenants

Lexington Oaks Plaza, competing with three mall-sized developments, plans to fill spots fronting County Road 54 first and seek the big retailers later.

By JAMES THORNER
Published December 6, 2005

WESLEY CHAPEL - With three mall-sized shopping centers hooking potential tenants, how is a modest-sized shopping center at County Road 54 and Lexington Oaks Boulevard to compete?

Lexington Oaks Plaza will start by filling in the outparcels - the businesses directly fronting CR 54 - and worry later about filling the big retail space near the back of the lot.

By early spring, construction is scheduled to begin on the 30-acre shopping center at the entrance to the Lexington Oaks golf course community. Bulldozers cleared the site months ago.

The real estate broker, the Hogan Group, has signed contracts with several outparcel tenants, few of which the company will name specifically.

The businesses that have committed: CVS pharmacy, a locally owned bank, a Southwest-themed restaurant, Discovery Pointe day care center, two office buildings and a "Key West-style" small strip center.

The site of the main plaza, 11 acres with space for about 100,000 square feet of stores, remains unsold, said Jason Frost, a vice president with the Hogan Group.

Hogan wants to attract one of several "big box" stores, a name for relatively unadorned rectangular buildings surrounded by acres of parking.

"I haven't nailed down anyone on that big box site. But it's just a matter of time," Frost said.

No surprise why: The Lexington Oaks shopping center has lots of strong-legged competitors in the sprint for tenants.

It's not just the Grove at Wesley Chapel, the proposed 800,000-square-foot "lifestyle center" opening about a mile to the east at Interstate 75 and Oakley Boulevard.

Two other proposed retail behemoths in central Pasco County are competing - the Shops at Wiregrass at Bruce B. Downs Boulevard and State Road 56 and Cypress Creek Town Center at SR 56 and I-75.

The Grove released a list of potential tenants last week. It included sought-after national chains: Best Buy, Dick's Sporting Goods, Ross Stores, Michaels and PetSmart.

Frost points out that ECHO Development, the Pittsburgh company behind the Grove, has acquired only "letters of intent," not contracts, from those retailers.

In Frost's view, that means the retailers are hedging their bets in case they want to back out of the deals and skip to another center.

"Anyone can send a letter of intent," Frost said. "They're all nonbinding."

Lexington Oaks Plaza is owned by investors from California called Specialty Restaurants Corp. It plans to sell the property parcel by parcel.

[Last modified December 6, 2005, 02:15:34]