Northwest Commons signs Dick's Sporting Goods as anchor store
Keeping an eye to central Nebraska. where business continues strong. - Jerry Slusky
(The Independent) Northwest Commons, the major redevelopment project at the former Grand Island Mall, hit a milestone Friday.
“We are official — we have an anchor for our redevelopment,” said Tim Lowe, vice president of the Staenberg Group, the St. Louis-based commercial real estate firm developing the property with Grand Island owner Ray O’Connor.
“We have executed a lease with Dick’s Sporting Goods to take 45,000 square feet and anchor the proposed Northwest Commons redevelopment,” Lowe said.
It’s a 10-year lease, so work will begin shortly.
“We’ll probably start some interior demolition yet this year, but most of the activity to redevelop the center will occur next year,” Lowe said. “Our lease requires us to deliver the space to them in the middle of September for them to open by October 2015.”
Dick’s Sporting Goods was founded in 1948 by Dick Stack in New York. His son, Ed Stack, is the current chief executive officer and has grown the store to more than 500 locations. There are three Dick’s stores in Nebraska — two in Omaha and one in Papillion, according to the company website.
“Dick’s is one of the premier sporting goods stores here in the United States and they’ve been looking in the market for a long time and we’re happy we found a spot for them in Grand Island,” Lowe said.
The former Grand Island Mall site just north of Shopko includes 154,000 square feet of building space, plus potholed parking lots facing both Webb Road and Highway 281.
O’Connor and Staenberg Group officials announced earlier this year that they will cut through the center of the building near where Hastings Bookstore is now located. That cut-through will become a landscaped, pedestrian-friendly driveway that will link the west side of the building to the east side.
Dick’s Sporting Goods will be located on the north side of the new cut-through and have a main entrance facing Webb Road, with a secondary entrance facing Highway 281, Lowe said.
Signing the anchor tenant opens the door now to attract other national retailers and restaurant franchises, Lowe said. There will be a total of 15 to 20 retail and restaurant locations in the completed Northwest Commons.
“This was the anchor tenant we had been pursuing, so signing the lease was a big deal for us,” Lowe said. “We are very excited.”