Saturday, November 21, 2015

South Lake Centre, Southaven, MS

Today's post highlights DeSoto County, MS, retail.

On the heels of such retail madness spurred by Tanger's grand opening in Southaven this weekend, I figured today might be a good day to look at one of the quieter, more established retail centers in the city! This also happens to coincide with my latest photoset on flickr: we'll be taking a look around South Lake Centre!

 

Situated just to the left of the Southaven Walmart, South Lake Centre is likely some of the first retail to sprout up at the Goodman Road I-55 interchange. Surprisingly, its tenant base has remained stable over much of its lifetime. (EDIT: or so I say! see below...)

Screenshot Courtesy
 
Screenshot Courtesy
 
Per the DeSoto County Chancery Clerk's website, I was able to find these early plans for South Lake Centre! The original 1996 plan (top) is far different from the layout today, namely in its inclusion of a theater and exclusion of the fast food outparcels fronting Goodman. (Cool to see they were planning a mall for Southaven even back then, though!) The revised 1999 plan (bottom) is much more familiar, although its list of tenants is a bit less like today's, which is the opposite of what I was thinking! It's rather hard to read, but on my phone looking directly at the PDF I'm able to tell every big box but the far left had proposed tenants: from left to right, Party City, Shoe Carnival, Old Navy, Cato, Petco, Waccamaw, and Office Depot. Read on and see what remains and what does not (and keep in mind, who knows if that listing was ever realized!)...


Back to the original post: Here is a tenancy map, as found in this PDF file, that appears to be from 2008. The thirty tenants of the center (plus some additional retail) are listed and labeled, along with their square footage measurements.

 

Anchoring the left end of the center are Hancock Fabrics, Sally Beauty Supply, and Gap FactoryStore. Hancock and Sally are original tenants. Gap was formerly Fashion Bug.




You may recall that Gap has a FactoryStore at Tanger Outlets Southaven, which is just down the road: that road sign pictured at the top of the post is at the center's Airways Boulevard entrance, which means Gap is essentially at the corner of Airways and Goodman and the corner of Airways and Church! The cashier at this location said Gap plans to keep both stores in operation, and that the outlet store has some sort of difference to this location, although admittedly with the same name and similar prices it's hard to figure out just what exactly that difference really is.




Beside those three are Marshalls, arguably the center's main anchor; Rainbow; and Shoe Carnival. Rainbow was formerly a Hallmark location - I believe Hallmark downsized into one of the spaces in one of the front three structures (which are less detailed in this post, apologies) before permanently closing. The revived Dots chain, if I remember correctly, operated a store here after that, with Rainbow moving in soon after its closure.

 


Old Navy is another center stalwart, though, like its Shoe Carnival neighbor, it has received a façade refresh over the years. Old Navy's was actually accompanied by an extensive interior remodel - it must do good business here to warrant that, and, considering Gap is a part of their company, perhaps that was a reason the FactoryStore was opened here, and will remain as such.

 
 

Past a strange blocked alleyway (strange, that is, because all the other stores are connected), Old Navy is neighbored by Dressbarn and Petco... well, until this week, Dressbarn was next door, anyway! Unfortunately, I never did get a close-up picture of it while open, and moreover never for a minute thought it would close, simply because I didn't particularly register that it was going to have a store at Tanger. Evidently they, unlike Gap, did not see having two locations on one road as profitable.

 


The final two big box stores in South Lake Centre, closest to Walmart, are Sports Authority and Office Depot. Either early this year or late last year, Sports Authority remodeled their exterior, removing their signage for the duration of the construction, which had me thinking maybe they moved out. Nope, turns out they just wanted that splash of color! I thought for sure they would remove that 90s green vestibule overhang, but they never did.




Office Depot, unlike many of the other stores in the center, has yet to remodel. The old cart pictured in the middle from down by the Marshalls/Rainbow area is just one of many relics hanging around - see my flickr album from this week for a look around the inside, in honor of the one year anniversary of the Horn Lake OfficeMax (bottom pic) consolidating into this store.




Of the three mini strip centers at the front of South Lake Centre, I chose to focus on the leftmost, or eastern, one. From right to left, that center - in 2008 - was anchored by Avenue, Ashley Stewart, a vacant space (!), Oreck, Catherine's, Beneficial Finance, RadioShack, Robert Irwin Jewelers, Hunan Restaurant, and Mattress Firm.



Today, much of that is the same: the vacant space has been tenanted by We Got You Covered (a cell phone case place), Beneficial Finance has given way for American Family Dentistry to move in, and Hunan shockingly closed this year and has been replaced by a new Akita restaurant. Even RadioShack remains (!!), this being one of the locations bought out by Sprint. The store recently received new signage.


Quickly heading behind the center, we see that not one but two hotels have managed to cram themselves in! On the left is Office Depot joined by the rest of South Lake Centre heading eastward toward Airways, and immediately to the right of the hotels (not pictured) is Southaven Towne Center. Airways Boulevard is the shopping center mecca in Southaven, if you haven't figured that out yet!!
 


A couple of parting wide shots from South Lake Centre...


...and now I, like this Old Navy mannequin, am going to go lie down for a minute!!

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone, and that you stay safe and get some great deals if you're going Black Friday shopping! Until next time, have fun exploring the retail world wherever you are!

Retail Retell

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for another cool blog post! Wow, that original 1996 plan is kind of hilarious actually :P Also funny the postion they have that "proposed future regional mall" drawn in at! And I never knew they were planning a theater for South Lake Centre! But yeah, Southaven had been wanting a mall for as long as I can remember.

    Also, you were spot on about everything you said concerning Hallmark. I'm almost certain Party City never came about, but Shoe Carnival sounds right. Cato has been gone for so long, I barely remember them being there.

    And I was going to say I never heard of Waccamaw, but I did a bit of research and found out they merged with HomePlace in the late 90's, and the store that's now Sports Authority started out as HomePlace, but was gone by 2001 (the entire company vaporized!). I don't know why, but I really seem to remember it being a Michaels after that (I could be wrong!). We really don't shop at this center much, but it's cool to know all the history of it nonetheless. Sorry I couldn't be more help :P

    One more thing: I did notice the Sprint/Radio Shack new signange on the back of the building just yesterday, but have yet to see it on the front.

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    1. I would say you're welcome, but you're the one giving the compliment, so thanks! I wonder if it was Malco, or another theater.

      Cool, thanks for all the info! I wondered after Googling it if it was a HomePlace instead, especially given that it said it went away in 2001, and then I saw Sports Authority moved in in 2002 per the chancery clerk website. I'm surprised there isn't a Michaels in Southaven! So the remaining original tenants there are Old Navy, Office Depot, Petco, Shoe Carnival, and (possibly) Hancock, although that first anchor looks like it split up into more than just Hancock, so Sally might be original too. I'm surprised Marshalls isn't!

      I noticed it first when they changed it on the tall Goodman road sign, then made a point to check out the building itself. Speaking of that road sign, in one of those documents on the chancery clerk's page it shows that Office Depot owns certain portions of that center, and the schematic for the road sign made sure to have one of the rectangles say "Office Depot sign placard!" Maybe that's another reason they moved into the Office Depot, if they owned the land already.

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  2. I wondered that about Malco as well. Perhaps they decided to "go bigger" and build the theater across the street instead! So it's extremely doubtful Michaels was ever where HomePlace was after all. I do remember that spot sitting vacant for a while, but evidently not very long. And since the Hickory Hill location was a HomePlace (per kingskip1), I'm fairly certain this one was too, seeing how Waccamaw is name you'd think I'd remember if one was at SouthLake! Your remaining original tenants list looks right to me, and I would think you can add Sally to that as well. I certainly remember all those being at SouthLake Centre for as long as I can remember, but that really ain't saying much :P Sounds like a pretty good theory about Office Depot as well...

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    1. Must be!

      I thought the same thing when I first saw that: "what the heck is a Waccamaw?!" :P

      Haha, thanks! And if that is true about Office Depot, it kinda sucks, but at least makes sense... :-/

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  3. I too miss the '90s Walmart. I used to prefer Walmart over any other store, but it hasn't been the same since Sam Walton died. I miss those large signs with circles over banners. At least I've got some memories and its nice seeing this style again.

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    1. I am too young to really remember 90s Walmart, but what fuzzy memories I have of my childhood of early 00s Walmart are similarly gone today in favor of the new style and trends, etc. I agree that it's not the same anymore... maybe that's what they wanted, but still...

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