IKEA, Lowe's Home Improvements And Costco To Anchor Mission Valley's Fenton Marketplace Home/Retail Center

Furniture World Magazine

For four decades, San Diegans have flocked to metropolitan Mission Valley to shop. By the summer of the year 2000, the city's central retail hub will be completed with Fenton Marketplace, a unique 47-acre home and retail center that Sudberry Properties, Inc. will develop on the former site of H.G. Fenton Companies' sand and gravel-mining operations immediately west of Qualcomm Stadium. Unlike the nearby regional malls Fashion Valley and Mission Valley Center -- the majority of whose retailers focus on apparel, soft goods and electronics -- Fenton Marketplace will bring to San Diego IKEA, the Sweden-based multinational retailer of affordable and trendy home/office furnishings and accessories, as well as Southern California's first Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse. Costco will be the center's third major anchor. Because the Fenton Marketplace IKEA will be the retailer's only outlet south of its central Orange County store in Tustin, the center is expected to attract consumers from throughout San Diego County, said Thomas W. Sudberry Jr., principal of Sudberry Properties Inc. The retail center's location in Mission Valley is an important one -- it is the only remaining undeveloped property in the river valley presently zoned for commercial development that can accommodate an anchored retail project. In design and retail mix, the $60 million Fenton Marketplace will be unlike any retail center in Mission Valley. Indeed, the center's concept and urban plan transforms typical large warehouse retailers into anchors of a stylish urban retail village that will be a visual as well as service asset to Mission City, the 215-acre, transit-oriented, master-planned community. Unanimously approved by the San Diego City Council in 1998, H.G. Fenton Companies' Mission City is just west of Qualcomm Stadium on either side of Friars Road. In addition to Fenton Marketplace, the master plan contemplates the eventual development of 2,400 to 3,000 apartments and condominium units, one-half of which are already underway, a business park with offices, a new branch library, a new San Diego Trolley stop, and a bridge linking the stadium with Camino del Rio North. The majority of the residential development will be on 133 acres north of Friars Road. Residents will be able to walk to the retail, business and transit components on Mission City's 82 southern acres via a pedestrian passage under Friars Road. The trolley stop will be adjacent to Fenton Marketplace, residential parcels and the two-acre site that the Fenton Companies is donating to the city for a branch library with a community room. With approximately 560,000 square feet of built space to accommodate the three major anchors and a village-like retail and food court component, Fenton Marketplace will become the county's 11th largest retail center. The IKEA store will be approximately 210,000 square feet, the Lowe's some 141,200 square feet, and the Costco about 147,000 square feet. In addition, there will be approximately 61,500 square feet of space for the village retail/food components. Working closely with Sudberry, community groups and FLOCKE & AVOYER Commercial Real Estate, the exclusive marketing agent for Fenton Marketplace, Fehlman LaBarre developed forward-looking Design Guidelines for the retail center and the remainder of Mission City. The prominent San Diego-headquartered architecture and planning firm also developed Fenton Marketplace's site plan and the architecture for the urban retail/food court component of the project. In addition, Fehlman LaBarre is responsible for the design documents for the IKEA, Lowe's and Costco structures, which the anchors will independently design and build. According to John F. Hickman, FLOCKE & AVOYER senior vice president, the completed Fenton Marketplace will be the third largest retail center in Mission Valley. "Interest among potential tenants is very strong; it is not going unnoticed especially as Fenton Marketplace will be the only center in San Diego County having IKEA as a flagship," he said. "We're just starting our preleasing program and already there is substantial interest." K. James Flocke, FLOCKE & AVOYER principal, said that future Fenton Marketplace tenants will likely cover a broad range of retail types, including a bookstore, a coffee shop, food services ranging from fast food to larger footage restaurants, and a service station that will be operated by Costco. "The tenant mix will make Fenton Marketplace much more than a center for home/office improvements," Flocke said. "There will be something to attract almost everyone." Among the other members of the Sudberry Properties' development team are Collins General Contractors headed by John Carhart, general contractor, and Stuart Engineering headed by Stuart Peace, civil engineering. Established in 1991 by multi-award-winning architects Mark Fehlman, AIA, and Michael LaBarre, AIA, FEHLMAN LABARRE is among the most prominent of San Diego-headquartered architecture and urban planning firms. The firm's emphasis has been devoted to high quality and energetic retail environments including large-and small-scale urban mixed-use projects, urban and community revitalization mixed-use projects, and mixed-use theatre-entertainment projects. In less than a decade, FEHLMAN LABARRE has planned and designed more than 3 million square feet of urban environments noted for architectural excellence, creativity, environmental sensitivity, functionalism and economic viability. FLOCKE & AVOYER Commercial Real Estate is San Diego's largest-volume, locally based commercial real estate brokerage concentrating solely on the marketing of retail properties. Since its establishment in 1985, FLOCKE & AVOYER has been involved in over $1.4 billion in total lease and sales transactions. In addition to shopping center investments, representing retail tenants and offering comprehensive shopping center development consultant services, FLOCKE & AVOYER is the exclusive sales and leasing marketing firm for more than 100 shopping centers (totaling more than 9 million square feet of retail space) throughout San Diego County.