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Vegas trip paid off big, mall developers say BYLINE: Milo Ippolito; Staff Atlanta shopping center developer Mark Toro came home from Las Vegas a winner. Toro, president of the upstart North American Properties-Atlanta, flew his sharp suits and eager staff to the fast-money capital this week to sell space at strip malls he is building in Gwinnett and neighboring counties. He is one of several metro area developers who used the annual International Council of Shopping Centers convention as an opportunity to make deals with retailers. "It has been as good a convention as we had hoped for," Toro said Thursday, the day the convention ended. Toro hopes to begin a second strip mall at MarketPlace at Mill Creek, which he is developing across the street from the Mall of Georgia. Five big-box chains expressed strong interest in the center at the convention, he said. If they sign on, he can build it. Construction already has begun for Toys "R" Us, Borders, OfficeMax and other stores for the first phase of MarketPlace at Mill Creek, set to open this fall. On Wednesday, Toro signed a deal at his booth in the convention hall with Fashion Bug to occupy the last vacancy at the Lakeshore MarketPlace in Gainesville. The newly opened shopping center is his company's first metro Atlanta project. Now that the center is full, North American is ready to close a deal to sell it to Selig Enterprises, which owns the Borders-anchored shopping center in Buckhead, among other centers. The Las Vegas event is considered the biggest week of the year for developers, retailers and landlords to make deals. The expansive exhibit hall -- bigger than most of the shopping centers being pitched -- is a spectacle befitting a town with a pyramid, Empire State Building and Eiffel Tower in its skyline and slot machines in the airport. The convention booths are huge and elaborately constructed with columns, arches and video boards to evoke the shopping centers they represent. Simon Property Group, which co-owns the Mall of Georgia and owns more shopping centers than anyone else in America, had a 25,000-square-foot booth with a pink granite look. Mills Corp., building Sugarloaf Mills near Lawrenceville, had 21 private offices in a Planet Hollywood-like booth with a lifesized "Alien" from the movie series at the door. Handshake deals made in these booths are usually kept secret until leases are lawyered and signed and public relations departments prepare official announcements. But some major news for northern Gwinnett slipped out when developer Ben Carter identified Rich's as the fifth department store expected to join the Mall of Georgia. The mall was designed with four anchors and space for two future anchors. "I think the fifth anchor will be done very, very soon," said Thomas Schneider, executive vice president for development for Simon. Scale models and renderings displayed for proposed shopping centers around the country showed a remarkable resemblance to Carter's original concept for the Mall of Georgia, though some developers say they never heard of him or it. Nevertheless, indoor shopping centers with an open-air cluster or "village" of shops out front were the rage. Glimpses of a couple of shopping center concepts new to Gwinnett were debuted at the convention. The sketches for Sugarloaf Mills were at best sketchy. The concept is an indoor outlet mall with a "racetrack" floor plan that lets shoppers circle the mall instead of walking from end to end. Flourishes to capture a local flair are promised. No clues as to what those will be were offered. Closer detail was provided in architectural renderings of Forum at Peachtree Parkway, a "Main Street"-style center proposed for Peachtree Corners by developer RonPfohl. The idea is to place two strip malls facing each other across a narrow parking strip to create the look of a downtown city street. Wide sidewalks, benches, planters and streetlights are added to give shoppers a pleasant environment to stroll in. Cousins Properties is using a similar concept at a prototype center called Avenue at East Cobb. Pfohl said the trip to Vegas to show off the drawings paid off. "I confirmed this week, I'd say, 10 deals," he said.
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