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Originally Posted by SmilingBob
This area is definitely upscale. Probably as much or more so than downtown customers, but the question is how to develop it differently from Fashion Place. When I was there Cottonwood was owned by Price Development who are only slightly better than Woodbury Corp. at managing malls and tenants. General Growth is a much better company regarding mall development, and it will be a nice project.
I would like to see an open Gateway-type project there. The mall itself is a tear-down and rebuild project. And if you are going to tear it down you don't rebuild an enclosed mall. So you are left with an open Mall or Strip Mall. The area is too high end for a simple strip mall, like the ones which surround it.
Cottonwood Mall is on a very small piece of land. Parking is a huge issue. At Christmas employees had to park on the east side in a parking lot uphill from the mall. The stairs to go down were at least 3 stories high meaning the parking lot was up above the roof of the mall. Macey's has a nice parking garage, and you are looking at more parking garages regardless of what you do. You couldn't build Cottonwood Mall today because the parking requirements would prevent it. My guess is that you would need 500 more parking spaces and that only works if you go up. You would need to encircle the mall with parking garages to provide adequate parking. Gateway has some of that, but it is more open than Cottonwood would be.
With the small amount of land, I don't know how you build a very big project. I always felt that a boutique shopping plaza was the way to go. Everything very upscale. Jewelry, clothing, gifts, shoes, etc. The market area could support high-end products and now would definitely be the time to move forward. Should have been working on it earlier and be able to grab more of the ZCMI Center/Crossroads Plaza dollars.
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Thanks for your very helpful thoughts. That certainly is a challenging location in some ways, but would be well worth the effort if executed properly.
I guess something a long the line of Gateway,"perhaps even more densely developed." They could certainly better utilize the properties across the street on Higlhand also.
I have always appreciated a well designed, multi level parking garage. It would seem that property would require it. I think something a long the same scale as The Grove in L.A. It is located in a similar type of location,"Good surface streets,but not on a freeway interchange." The Grove utilizes a large multi level parking structure, with a Euro-theme style of village main-street. It's extremely popular and has even become a major tourist attraction.
I agree with you Smiling Bob, that it should be upscale. Holladay is an area with a lot of Brentwood,Bel Aire style estates and incomes. I guess Macy's would be the anchor,which is fine. In L.A.'s very upscale Century City out-door Mall, Macy's performs very well. At the Century City Mall,all parking is under the complex itself.
The Grove, Los Angeles. This project is on a fairly compact footprint, but accomplishes a lot in a densely packed area. The only complaint would be that all residential is off premises. It would be wise to include condo's within the complex. There are a lot of condo's surrounding across the street.
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