Matt Lucas and B.D. Amend both grew up in Dallas. Their fathers, Don Lucas and John Amend, ran marathons together, B.D. Amend says.
These days, both sons are working in the family business — Matt Lucas with Dallas-based Luke’s Locker, which opened its first store in Oak Lawn in the’70s and has since grown to 10 stores in the Dallas, Houston and Austin areas; and B.D. Amend with The Amend Group, a real estate brokerage and leasing firm in Dallas. They are both runners, like their fathers were, and their family history and common interest led to the recent announcement that Luke’s Locker would open in Arboretum Village, the proposed shopping center at Gaston-Garland-Grand.
The Amend Group has represented Luke’s Locker in other real estate deals, such as Luke’s moving its flagship from Oak Lawn to Park Cities Plaza, and “when we found out that Lincoln [Property Co.] had acquired both sides of Gaston and were going to build access to the trail, it just made sense,” Amend says.
Luke’s Locker will inhabit the largest of the pad sites Arboretum Village developer Lincoln Property Company is building in what is now parking lot, Lucas says. The 7,500-square-foot store (the “Sole” store in the above rendering) should open by Oct. 1, 2014.
As a young boy, Lucas recalls spending he and his brothers spending their Sundays running around White Rock Lake trying to keep up with their father. “I don’t know if it was fun for us but it was fun for him,” Lucas jokes. He was 10 years old when the first Luke’s Locker opened 35 years ago. The Arboretum Village store is “kind-of the opportunity of a lifetime because it’s sort of our roots, and Lakewood obviously is exploding with growth — maybe more than it ever has — and it does point back to White Rock Lake and that people want a quality of life that it offers,” Lucas says.
The store will be a new location rather than a relocation, he says, and is intended to be more convenient for customers in White Rock Lake’s surrounding communities. Part of the plan is to be a place where running groups can meet, “where people can drop their stuff off, dry clothes, changes clothes, use the restroom, get a drink of water, hang out … we want it to be a comfortable and inviting setting for users of the lake,” Lucas says.
Plans for the shopping center include a trail access point a few hundred feet north of where Luke’s Locker will be, Lucas says. It likely will be akin to the trail connection the White Rock YMCA proposed more than four years ago that never was built, and will give trail users easy access to not only Luke’s but also the rest of the restaurants and shops in the nearly 80,000-square-foot development.
“The other tenants that Lincoln Property is bringing into the development are complementary to us,” Lucas says. “People can use the lake then come back and do some shopping, be able to get a meal, get a cup of coffee, get your juice and all your essential needs taken care of.”
The Fresh Market and Lakewood Ace Hardware are the only other tenants Lincoln has confirmed so far.
Lucas credits Amend and his passion about Lakewood for bringing the real estate deal to fruition. Amend, who lives in Lakewood Hills close to the Arboretum Village development, says The Amend Group’s main business is representing office and corporate users, but he has “fallen into retail,” mainly because “there’s a lot of energy around Lakewood. We’re seeing lot of retailers coming in.”
The bulk of Amend’s retail efforts are in Lakewood and East Dallas, including other deals he is working on at Arboretum Village, he says. He wasn’t ready to divulge details, saying only that “other retail operations poking around Arboretum Village and Lakewood are really exciting.”
