Stirling Properties Takes Big Bite of Greater New Orleans Retail Market

By Eliza Theiss, Associate Editor

Local full-service real estate firm Stirling Properties has entered into a 35/65 joint venture with national mall REIT CBL & Associates Properties Inc. to develop Fremaux Town Center in Slidell, La.

The 80-acre development along Interstate 10 will be carried out in two phases. Phase I, already 70 percent pre-leased, will feature 295,000 square feet and is set for a March 2013 groundbreaking and a second-quarter 2014 opening. Future tenants include Dick’s Sporting Goods, Kohl’s, Best Buy, T.J.Maxx, PetSmart, ULTA Beauty and Rack Room Shoes, among others. Phase II will add a further 300,000 square feet of retail space.

“Stirling Properties is excited about our partnership with CBL & Associates Properties to develop Fremaux Town Center and believes that this joint venture brings the best possible team together to build this project,” declared Stirling Properties’ senior vice president of development, Townsend Underhill. CBL executive vice president Michael Lebovitz added: “Fremaux Town Center is well located and is already well leased, with an outstanding retail line-up.  We are looking forward to announcing additional retailers as the development progresses.”

As previously reported on this page, Fremaux Town Center (formerly known as Summit Fremaux) was originally proposed in 2008 as a 400-acre retail-office-residential mixed-use project by Alabama-based Bayer Properties, an entity no longer carrying an interest in the project.

In other news, Stirling Properties announced the development of a full-service Walgreens drugstore on Westbank in Terrytown.

The 17,384-square-foot project will rise on the corner of Terry Parkway and Carol Sue Avenue, on the former site of an A&P grocery/Eckerd Drug-anchored shopping center. The store, a relocation of an existing Walgreens across Terry Parkway, is expected to attract further development to the retail corridor, according to Stirling vice president of development Peter Aamodt: “This project represents a cooperative effort between Stirling Properties and Jefferson Parish to bring back a distressed commercial property to prominence once again as a viable retail corner that will serve the people of Terrytown.”

Groundbreaking is set for April, and the store is expected to open in the third quarter of 2013. The full-service pharmacy will feature a drive-thru window.

Stirling Properties is handling pre-development services such as permitting, lease negotiation, design, financing and construction and project management. The Covington-based company is Walgreens’ preferred Gulf South developer and has two other Walgreens location under development in the Gulf South: one in New Orleans, on Magazine Street, and  one in Gulf Port, Miss., on Pass Road.

Photo courtesy of Stirling Properties