River Oaks to add $200 million worth of El Paso retail spaces in 5-year plan

COURTESY ILLUSTRATION This rendering shows how the 45 million, 250,000 square-foot North Hills Crossing center in Northeast El Paso will look. It will be anchored by a Walmart Neighborhood Market. Ross Dress for Less, Marshalls, Rue21, Rack Room Shoes, and Big Lots are among other tenants slated for the center at Martin Luther King and U.S. Highway 54.

Gerald Rubin isn't sitting still after leaving Helen of Troy, the billion dollar-plus, El Paso consumer products company he founded and ran for more than 40 years.

The 70-year-old El Paso entrepreneur has now put his other company, El Paso shopping center developer River Oaks Properties, on a construction binge expected to cost about $200 million to produce about 2 million square feet of mostly retail space in strip shopping centers over the next four to five years.

A huge chunk of the development will take place this year and next year when River Oaks plans to spend about $100 million to add almost 700,000 square feet of retail space at eight shopping centers in East and Northeast El Paso, and build two emergency medical-service buildings, with 10,000 square feet each, for a national chain in East and West El Paso.

River Oaks owns and operates about 75 shopping centers in El Paso, Rubin reported. It also owns Downtown retail buildings, and has extensive land holdings.

"This is our biggest year in our (46-year) history. I think it's a lot of pent up demand. Developers didn't build that much over the last few years because of the recession," Rubin said last week during an interview in River Oaks' West Side offices. Also, national retailers are now in expansion mode, he added.

"I want everyone to know that the city is growing and that there are new developments coming to El Paso, and we're doing the majority of the shopping center development in El Paso this year," Rubin said.

River Oaks' largest current project is the $45 million, 250,000 square-foot North Hills Crossing center at U.S. Highway 54 and Martin Luther King in store-hungry Northeast El Paso. The official ground breaking is set for Sept. 18, but dirt work has already begun on the center, which will be anchored by a Walmart Neighborhood Market.

Rubin declined to name other tenants signed for the center. But a center brochure produced by RJL Real Estate Consultants, which does leasing for River Oaks, shows some of the other tenants: Ross Dress for Less, Marshalls, and Rue21 clothing stores; Rack Room Shoes, Big Lots, Dollar Tree, and Verizon Wireless stores; and a McDonald's restaurant. Those are retailers that have been in the El Paso market for years. Tenant names are still missing for big chunks of the center, the brochure shows.

Bob Ayoub, president of Mimco Inc., El Paso's other large shopping center developer, said River Oaks' growth is good for El Paso.

Read the original post:
River Oaks to add $200 million worth of El Paso retail spaces in 5-year plan