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