Lake Highlands Town Center talk

A little more than a week ago, Keri Mitchell and I sat down with some members of the Prescott Realty Group team to get the nitty gritty on Lake Highlands Town Center goings on of late. Spoiler Alert: We didn’t unearth any mind-blowing news, but they did address concerns and offer up a few morsels about what we can expect in future months, days and years.

 The day of our interview, a Thursday morning earlier this month, was a day plagued by bad national news about the economy, so naturally, that was the first order of discussion. How are these troubled pecuniary times affecting Prescott’s pursuit of desirable Town Center tenants?

The response:
First of all, despite rising construction costs and an overall dim economic situation, the Lake Highlands Town Center project ( Download next_phases_8108.pdf) is still on schedule. That means they are now in the phase that includes grading, utility installation, street paving and additional important infrastructure work.  Horizontal construction, as announced in a recent press release (above download), also began on schedule in August, says Stephanie Colovas, Senior Managing Director Acquisitions/Development.

Meanwhile, Mark Henderson, a Lake Highlands resident and Prescott’s Retail Group director is confidently working to secure those tenants. He says Prescott has garnered several letters of intent from potential lessees and is in lease negotiations with an anchor tenant — obviously, they are not prepared to make any announcements yet. He and Colovas grant it could take longer than originally expected to seal deals because companies these days are putting more extended thought into new-store locations.That started before the country's fiscal breakdown was national news, by the way.

But, Prescott team members say, Lake Highlands Town Center has all the so-called bells and whistles that attract great tenants — DART transit; areas to 'live, work, play'; parks, trails, neighborhood-y surroundings and an intriguing "story" to boot.

“Folks are interested. They are listening. They are calling back,” says Henderson.  He also explains that the selling process is a process of educating people and businesses about Lake Highlands. 

When pressed for hints about potential anchor tenants, Henderson says, think specialty store, bookstore, dinner theater … I’d heard specialty grocer and bookstore before, but not the dinner theater thing. They hope to secure at least two anchors soon.(And we hope to bring you the announcement soon!)

Look for more about our Town Center interview in days to come right here on Back Talk.

Comments

[Jason]

Can someone explain to me what happened to all the trees? One day they were there, the next they were bulldozed into a giant pile and hauled off. The pdf article says they are preserving them in some sort of tree farm on-site, but I've yet to see it. They seemed like they were being so careful during demolition, and now it looks like the surface of the moon. Bleh.

[Christina Hughes-Babb]

Jason, I did talk with Prescott about the trees. They say they have put a great deal of time and funds (100s of 1,000s of dollars, they say) into preserving as many of the grown trees as possible. I plan to write more about this part of the conversation soon...

[Brian]

From my perspective it looked like they took care to preserve the trees during demolition and then just let them wither away. Not terribly impressive.

[Mike]

Quite a few trees were transplanted to the Southern edge of the property. I noticed them last week while traveling North on Skillman. It even looked as of irrigation lines wer running to each tree. The trees should do just fine!

[eyeswideopen]

It appears- to the far south side of the construction lot - Trees were re-planted in rows.
Or -I may have been seeing things - dodging the big trucks hauling in and out of there.....

[rarepair]

My observation of the trees was so visually immediate: I drive south on Skillman from Royal to Walnut Hill 'bout every day. One day the vista was as it's always been; full, a bit shady, a palate of green. The very next day - bam, the vista was glaring and bare! I was staring into a desolate plain, shielding my eyes in the sun.

Hope some trees are going back in that will make my drive by lovely again. Not to mention make me want to stop and spend bucks at the Speciality Store.

[a q]

When is the dart station scheduled to begin construction? and scheduled to open?

[share]

Maybe I missed an announcement - but wanted to make sure everyone has seen this new designed website about the town center:

www.lakehighlandstowncenter.com

[EM]

I agree - shocking and disappointing on the tree situation. Please share more about the DART station. There are alot of trees on that little piece of land too (if I understand correctly where it will be - in between school and orthodontist) and we are on WRT everyday almost - I would hate to see a moonscape there as well.

[ha!]

Looks like they took the website down - I saw it yesterday based on the post - was going to send it to my friend and now they have a "coming soon" sign.

They had a pretty cool fly over of the website yesterday.