Atlanta developer to build luxury outlet mall near Savannah

This project has been in the works for the last five years and I am glad to finally see it coming to fruition!

Posted: October 10, 2012 - 12:38am  |  Updated: October 10, 2012 - 7:46am
Reported in the Savannah Morning News by Mary Mayle 

The company that built the Mall of Georgia in Gwinnett County and the upscale St. John’s Town Center in Jacksonville, Fla., is planning a 560,000-square-foot luxury outlet mall in Pooler.

The Outlet Mall of Georgia is projected to open in the summer of 2014 in the southwest quadrant of I-95 and Pooler Parkway with four anchor stores, a food court, restaurants and a wide variety of shops.

The proposed $200-million project is set to break ground next spring and would create as many as 2,000 construction jobs, according to Ben Carter of Ben Carter Enterprises. When fully open, the mall would create between 1,700 and 2,000 retail jobs, Carter said Tuesday.

The 170-acre site will accommodate another half-million square feet for peripheral retail and hotel construction.

While financing is not complete and he would not name potential tenants, pre-leasing has begun, with interest from a number of high-end retailers, Carter said.

Abercrombie, Brooks Brothers, Coach and Louis Vuitton are among the tenants in the Jacksonville mall.

“From a visitor’s perspective, one of things that is missing here is really quality retail,” Carter said.

The Savannah engineering and architectural firm Kern-Coleman is working with Carter on the project.

Carter’s unscheduled presentation came at the end of the Savannah Economic Development Authority’s monthly meeting and was greeted with enthusiasm.

“The announcement today that Ben Carter is developing a luxury outlet mall in Chatham County is fantastic news,” said David Paddison, SEDA board chairman. “In addition to the massive construction investment, job creation and additional tax revenues, the Outlet Mall of Georgia will be a significant amenity for our residents, visitors and the millions of travelers passing through the I-95 corridor.

“This will be the signature outlet project on I-95 between Florida and Virginia”

Savannah is the second largest tourism market on the regional coast with 12 million tourists per year compared to Myrtle Beach at 14 million, Charleston at 4 million St. Augustine, Fla., at 3.4 million and Hilton Head Island at 2 million, according to Carter’s research.

“The closest comparable malls along the I-95 corridor are in Virginia and Florida,” he said. “While the Savannah regional trade area alone would not be sufficient to support a mall of this size, the tourist and traffic counts along the interstate more than make up for that.”

Traffic counts on I-95 run approximately 68,000 vehicles a day or 24.7 million annually.

“This is going to be huge for Pooler and all of Chatham County,” said Pooler Mayor Mike Lamb. “This is the shopping piece we’ve been looking for to make us a more complete city.”

Pooler has been in the bulls eye of targeted growth in the area for the last decade, and Lamb credited city council and staff with helping the city make good growth decisions. “We are ready for this,” he said. “Ben Carter Enterprises is the real deal, and we really appreciate them choosing our city.”

Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce President Bill Hubbard agreed.

“There’s a lot of work still to be done, but this is a great organizaion with tremendous capability,” he said.

“We are eager to help in any way we can.”

Read more about the Outlet Mall of Georgia at Upscale outlet mall proposed for Pooler and Atlanta developer to Ben Carter build luxury outlet mall near Savannah.  

A. Joseph Marshall
Coldwell Banker Commercial
Commercial Real Estate Advisor
Savannah, Ga

Big plans for Mall Blvd. shopping center

Posted: June 17, 2012 - 1:15am  |  Updated: June 17, 2012 - 2:15pm

By Adam Van Brimmer

Summary: There are ambitious plans to tear down Market Walk and improve it with new construction. Developers will raze the Days Inn, Kroger, mini-storage, office buildings and retail center. The site will house a new larger Kroger with fuel center, a 55,000SF big box, and many retail outlets and restaurants. A date to reopen the 24 acre site is not determined yet.

Conception of redevelopment. Not exact.

Read the full article at Big plans for Mall Blvd. shopping center.

A. Joseph Marshall
Coldwell Banker Commercial
Commercial Real Estate Advisor
Savannah, Ga

Roundabouts: The Solution for Savannah, Especially Mall Boulevard

Thomas and Hutton produce a regular newsletter regarding civil engineering trends. In their latest publication, they show that "transportation efficiency, our carbon footprint, and safety in the United States is a growing concern. Roundabouts are a viable solution and with the proper education can be a great benefit to our society."


I thought I would showcase their work today. Click on the first image to scroll through them in a larger format, if your computer allows.

A. Joseph Marshall
Coldwell Banker Commercial
Commercial Real Estate Advisor
Savannah, Ga

Is the Next Commercial Bubble Imminent?

I hate to post articles that could scare away the investors I have, but the opinions of the people calling the shots matter. If there is a commercial real estate bubble coming, be smart. If you're planning on buying land- be ready to hold it for 20 years. Are you planning to retire in the next 10 years? Chances are you won't want your retirement tied up in land. An investment in multi-family housing would be better because you'd be getting an immediate return on your investment. In case of a bubble, I advise against investing in retail. Here's why. With all that in mind, read on...

By Jacqueline Hlavenka

Penner, Smith and Buckley

NEW YORK CITY-While the transaction market is expected to continue picking up over the next two years, panelists at yesterday’s “Investment and Finance Strategies for New Acquisitions and Development Today” conceded that enough is enough with the recovery chatter. As part of the Urban Land Institute’s “Real Estate Finance and Investment 2011” conference at the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers in Midtown Manhattan, participants from CBRE Capital Partners, Prudential Real Estate Investors, Dune Capital and Bank of America Merrill Lynch agreed that investors with money burning a hole in their pockets should cool it, for now, at least.

“We are in the same bubble that led to the last crash,” said Ethan Penner, president of CBRE Capital Partners, explaining that FED is leading the industry down the same troubled path that led to the downturn in the mid-2000s. “It’s incredible to me that we mistakenly believe that pumping untold amounts of liquidity into the market is the answer to the problem to get asset values up.”

Thursday’s discussion was a stark contrast from Wednesday’s “Private Equity Capital” ULI panel, where participants predicted that core assets and CMBS would lead the recovery, as reported by GlobeSt.com. Penner said that investors are taking “massive and imprudent risks” to deploy the capital to get the returns they need. “Most money in the world is retirement savings, and most retirement savings are predicated upon achieving a certain actuary return,” he said. “When the FED does what they are doing, it takes all that hard-earned money that wants, craves and needs lower risk profiles, and all of us will end up paying them back in the form of higher taxes. It’s just a sham.”

While CMBS is coming back, Penner said it is only $14 billion year-to-date, which is “hardly in line” to plug a deep financial hole.” Most of that money, like 90% of it, addresses the top 55% loan-to-value on today’s value,” he said. “When you coming in the market $1.7 trillion of 125% LTV, and the CMBS markets address 55% LTV of that, even if it addressed the whole trillion, you have a big void to fill.”

On the REIT side, Ron Sturzenegger, managing director and global head of real estate, gaming and lodging, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said due to opportunistic lending, he saw several mortgage REITs go public due to initial IPOs. “Many of these REITs raised equity in 2009, share prices went way up and then those REITs went on a buying spree,” Sturzenegger said, explaining that the biggest investors over the last 24 months have bought core assets with low leverage. “They want returns of high single-digits or low teens, and that was available in the marketplace,” he said. “Again, what has been surprising is how quickly those REITs rebounded, how quickly their share prices came up.”

And with a “monstrous” wall of volume expected from the fallout of the Bank of Ireland and Anglo Irish Bank Corp., several investors are hanging out on the sidelines, like J. Allen Smith, chief executive officer of Prudential Real Estate and Cia Buckley, senior partner of Dune Capital. Buckley explained that Dune’s strategy involves a strict equity focus. “We are not really spending time on those deals that might have these multiple assets, where your upside is to restructure,” she said. “Worst case scenario would be a foreclosure. We have found that capital markets have become much more liquid for some of that. The hedge funds fall into that market.  We are focusing much more on purely the equity."

Smith said despite having a large open-ended core fund, the company is more focused on delivering as opposed to buying at the market today, concentrating on apartment development and niche-sectors like senior housing. “There’s no reason for us to be pushing to levels we are uncomfortable with, so we are backing off,” he said.