Shopping center lines up tenants

A Fort Worth commercial brokerage firm says it is lining up retailers for a new development near the northeast corner of Highway 191 and East Loop 338.

Along with Best Buy, which had previously been announced, retailers considering coming to the Chimney Rock Center include Academy Sports and Outdoors, Petco, Maurices, Dress Barn and The Childrens Place, said Brian Frank, a broker with The Woodmont Company.

“In my opinion, I think it’s going to be the premier shopping facility in Odessa,” Frank said.

The shopping center has a “tentative” opening date of October 2010, he said.

Along with national retailers, the 350,000 square foot complex will have locally based stores, as well as restaurants, but Frank said he couldn’t yet disclose them.

“There’s lots of capabilities to do restaurant pads out there,” he said.

Construction worker shortages while oil prices exceeded $100 a barrel were followed by a drop in the area economy.

But Frank said now is a good time to start construction.

“Now, we’re geared up and ramped up and ready to go,” he said.

Best Buy spokeswoman Erin Gunderson said recently that the company plans to enter the Odessa market in mid- to late summer 2010.

As for Academy, a Katy-based sporting goods and clothing retailer with more than 100 stores primarily in the Southeastern United States, spokesman Aaron Stoll responded to questions from the Odessa American with the following e-mail response: “We are committed to continually finding ways to better serve our customers in and around Odessa, TX. In that regard, we continue to evaluate the market for ways that would allow us to better serve our Odessa customer in the future.”

Like Best Buy, Academy currently has a location in Midland.

A representative for Secaucus, N.J.-based The Childrens Place didn’t have much to say.

“We don’t comment on potential new store locations until deals have been finalized,” said Jane Singer, vice president of investor relations.

Efforts to reach Petco officials were unsuccessful.

Donna Baccollo, a spokeswoman for Suffern, N.Y.-based Dress Barn, which also owns Maurices, also said the company waits until there is a done deal to release information.

“They could definitely be talking about opening in that shopping center,” she said of company executives, “but until it’s kind of a closed deal, they don’t talk about it.”