Doll retailer American Girl inked 12k SF in Glimcher Realty Trust's upscale Scottsdale Quarter. It was enough to get more spec on the way. (Reached for comment, a Barbie doll just stared at us for a while before our sister got mad and told us to give it back.)
Off Scottsdale Road and Greenway-Hayden Loop, this third phase will encompass 170k SF of both retail and above-retail office—most of which is spec, Glimcher's COO Marshall Loeb tells us (fresh from a Pelotonia charity bike ride in Columbus, Ohio). It's expected to deliver next summer, and CBRE's Brad Anderson and Mike Strittmatter will lease the office component.
Marshall says he's confident in leasing, since the existing office is nearly full, especially after Starwood Hotels & Resorts took 67k SF in May. “The market seems to be there. We had more demand for office. We felt like there was a niche there,” he says. He may be right. So far, the developer has an LOI for an undisclosed full-floor user.
Crescent Communities is also developing the 275-unit Crescent Scottsdale Quarter apartment complex in conjunction with Glimcher (here). Marshall says the first phases of office generated demand from unexpected tenants, such as with the mortgage and home building industries. “I would have thought we would have ended up with a Merrill Lynch or a UBS."
