Sometime in the next six months, three key tenants at Medallion Center could go away. The parent companies of Radio Shack, Applebee's and Pier 1 are in major financial difficulty, and that usually means store closings.
No one knows for sure if this will happen, and it may not. Rather, it points to another difficulty of leasing neighborhood retail space, which is always a hot topic here at Back Talk. Sometimes, it doesn't matter how good your demographics are or how willing the strip center owner is to deal. Often, fate intervenes.
If those stores close, the vacancies will affect not just Medallion, but efforts to get new, more neighborhood-friendly tenants at Casa Linda and the proposed Lake Highlands Town Center at Skillman and Walnut Hill. Retail leasing is very chicken and egg, where centers go after the same sort of tenants in a endless cycle of poaching and re-poaching. If Radio Shack closes its Medallion store, for example, Medallion will try to get someone who might otherwise go to Casa Linda or Lake Highlands. In addition, given their financial woes, it's almost certain that none of those retailers would open a new store at Casa Linda or the town center.
And, if that isn't confusing enough, consider this: Retail vacancy rates popped up a bit in the first half of this year, and we're getting the equivalent of three or four regional malls in new construction later this year. All of which makes filling space around here that much more difficult.
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