Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
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chor. (Three Sprouts are in development now in Nash- ville, so this will be one of the chain's first for the metro.) About 90 percent of the retail tenants already have leases or letters of in- tent. "We are well ahead of schedule," said Sittema. The retail tenants will in- c l u d e B u r l i n g t o n C o a t F a c t o r y , H o m e G o o d s , Off Broadway Shoe Ware- h o u s e a n d P e t S m a r t . Among the food tenants will be Panera Bread and Chili's Grill & Bar. The key to the success of the redevelopment was making the site a public- private partnership, Sit- tema says. "These types of developments cannot get done without a mu- nicipality partnership," h e s a i d . " F o r t h i s s i t e , w e h a v e t a x - i n c r e m e n t financing that we negoti- ated with the city of Nash- ville for extraordinary ex- penses such as demolition and infrastructure work." A more practical impetus, he notes, "is that any site we look at for redevelop- m e n t h a s t o b e a b l e t o support retail." The first walls of the Sprouts were erected just this summer. "The rest of retail is falling right b e h i n d , " s a i d S i t t e m a . "We are hoping to get the Sprouts open by May 2017, and the other retail will be coming on-line shortly thereafter." S C T THE EVER MORE MAGNIFICENT MILE Change is constant on Chicago's top retail street By Dees Stribling MARKET PROFILE C h i c a g o ' s M a g - nificent Mile is famous, high- p r i c e d a n d thronged with shoppers, but the same retail dynamic ex- ists there as in most retail districts: There is churn. The vacancy rate there at the Mag Mile is currently 3.2 per- cent, according to Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. That is a tight market, but there is space coming in the near fu- ture. Most significant, Apple is relocating to a new space further south on Michigan Avenue. GPS technology company Garmin's lease is set to expire this month, and, reportedly, though this is not confirmed, Crate & Barrel and Swatch Group have plans to depart from the Mag Mile in the near future. "Our vacancies are nothing more than stores leaving ahead of other stores coming in," said John Chikow, ex-officio president and CEO of The Magnificent Mile Association. "Vacant space doesn't linger here. We're not putting art shows in empty storefronts." shows in empty storefronts." Retailer interest in the Mag Mile hardly seems de- terred by high rents. Across the roughly 3.3 million square feet of Michigan Avenue retail space, average asking rents hit $162.41 per square foot in mid-2016, according to CBRE. Some boutique space goes for as much $600 per square foot, but the latest aver- age beats the previous high in 2013 by 25 percent. Chikow says he has no wor- ries about what will happen to the space at 679 N. Michigan Ave. that Apple is planning to vacate once its new location near the Chicago River opens next year. "When Apple came in 2003, it reinvented the space," Chikow said. "We fully expect that to happen with the next retailer at that loca- tion. Retailers not only want to come here, they want to make a splash." Moreover, Chikow says he is expecting the new Apple space to be as powerful a magnet for the Mag Mile as the current one is now. According to renderings, shoppers will enter the store from the plaza level through a glass enclosure and using a grand staircase. The 681,000-square-foot Shops at North Bridge, also N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 6 / S C T 51