By Amos Maki
– The Commercial Appeal –

Memphis-based Boyle Investment Co. is extending its roots in Northwest Mississippi by buying 145 acres at the intersection of Craft Road and Byhalia Road (Miss. 304) in DeSoto County from Hawks Crossing Investments LLC for about $4 million.

The site is the location of a proposed interchange of Interstate 269 and Craft Road. The property, located in unincorporated DeSoto County, includes three corners of that proposed interchange.

“We think this property is ideally located for a retail development in the fast-growing area of DeSoto County,” said Cary Whitehead, senior vice president of Boyle. “We plan to hold the property for future development when the timing is right.”

Boyle originally bid on the property at auction in November, when Roebuck Auctions officials said Boyle offered $4.4 million for 150 acres. But the deal was not finalized until Feb. 1.

The property is part of the larger Villages at Hawks Crossing mixed-use development where the new DeSoto County Elementary, Middle and High schools were built.

Boyle officials said the property was purchased because of its strategic location along the the future I-269, future residential growth and the location of the three new schools. The land can’t be developed until construction begins on I-269 in an estimated five to seven years.

As designed, I-269 will run east from the I-55/I-69 junction in north Hernando through central DeSoto. It will cross into Marshall County before swinging north, east of Collierville, to link with Tenn. 385. The highway is expected to have a major impact on development in booming DeSoto.

“As 269 fills in, that should be a strong location,” said Scott Barton of CB Richard Ellis Memphis. “As the road comes in and the rooftops are built, retail will certainly follow.”Whitehead said Boyle’s first project in DeSoto County, Southcrest Market at Goodman Road and I-55 in Southaven, has been successful and that the newly acquired property will provide the family-owned company “with yet another opportunity for the development of a strategically located retail center in DeSoto County.”

Boyle, one of the city’s oldest real estate development firms, entered the DeSoto County market in 2006 when it commenced development of Southcrest Market, an 80,000-square-foot regional retail center anchored by Best Buy in Southaven.

DeSoto County is one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation. With the addition of so many new residents over the years, retail quickly followed.

“Goodman Road is as busy as almost any road in Shelby County,” Barton said.

Retail absorption in DeSoto County, including Southaven, Horn Lake and Olive Branch, was a mixed bag in the fourth quarter. Olive Branch saw 10,837 square feet of absorption while Southaven and Horn Lake saw -14,305 square feet of absorption, according to CBRE.

Meanwhile, retail real estate development in the Memphis area will be a big story in 2008.

Several large projects are in the works or under construction, including the Ridgeway Trace project at Poplar and I-240 and the WSG Development Group project at Poplar and Cleveland in Midtown.

A group of investors is under contract to buy Belz’s Perimeter Place shopping center and the Malco Drive-In at Summer and I-240, and Poag & McEwen Lifestyle Centers is planning two major projects: one near the University of Memphis and one near Saddle Creek.

These projects, along with a handful of others, could add well over 1 million square feet of retail space to the market, according to CBRE.

By Tom Bailey, Jr.
– The Commercial Appeal –

Generators whir.

Heavy equipment backs up with the “beep-beep-beep” if alert horns.

All-terrain forklifts carry red brick everywhere.

Nearly a year since groundbreaking, The Avenue Carriage Crossing has taken form.

Steve Yenser and Lou Conti of the Atlanta based developer Cousins Properties stand atop a dirt mound in the heart of what they call a “regional open-air specialty shopping center.”

They point out places from the intersection of two wide “avenues,” now rutted soil.

The streets eventually will be lined with about 80 stores in the atmosphere of a Rockwellian downtown: big trees, shrubs, plants, 18 foot wide sidewalks, brick pavers, antique light fixtures, three-tiered fountains.

At the ends of the street to the east and west loom two huge department stores: Parisian and Dillard’s.

In the distance to the south will be a third anchor store or perhaps a hotel.

And to the north, the buildings lining the street frame a view of the Bill Morris Parkway Bridge over Houston Levee.

It’ll be like six of Germantown’s Saddle Creek lifestyle centers surrounded by big department stores.

Construction of The Avenue Carriage Crossing is on schedule for an Oct. 19 grand opening, said Yenser, Cousin’s chief of operations, and Conti, vice president of development.

A similar Development, Southaven Towne Center, is also scheduled to open later this year at Interstate 55 between Goodman and Church roads.

At Carriage Crossing, nearly 700,000 square feet of stores and restaurants are framed, and craftsmen are bricking up the simulated downtown in southwestern Collierville.

The first of the 1,500 trees, 4,500 shrubs and 40,000 potted plants have been trucked in and queued up for planting.

A crush of even more work and workers is about to descend. Within weeks, contractors for the first 60 stores will swoop in to prepare their spaces, swelling the workforce to about 300, Conti said.

The Atlanta-based developer is building the shopping center with Jim Wilson & Associates of Montgomery, Ala.

About 80 percent of the first phase, 696,000 square feet, has tenants, Yenser said.

Willow oaks, magnolias, crape myrtles, red maples, loblobby pines and $1.5 million worth of other landscaping will cast the storefronts in shade and instant beauty.

Lush landscaping, sculptures and distinctive architecture are elements that help make open air specialty centers upscale.

“Trees will be 18 feet tall on Day 1,” Conti said.

With 3,600 parking spaces on the 90-acre center, about 8,000 shoppers could potentially swarm the place at one time.

The developers are unabashed in describing how elite those shoppers will be. One marketing flier describes consumer lifestyle characteristics of the primary trade area surrounding the center. The sheet identifies the “upward bound/upper class” as taking up 24 percent of the households, the “country squire/upper class” as 21 percent, and the “blue blood estates/upper scale” as 13 percent. The ethnic diversity is “mostly Caucasian,” the education level is heavily college and post graduate, and the employment is heavily professional.

The roster of shops doesn’t include many local, independent businesses yet. But now that local businessmen can see the place and better envision what it’s going to be like, Yenser predicts that more will sign on.