When neighborhood resident Mickey Ashmore talks with tenants about Casa Linda Shopping Center, it’s an easy sell for him.

Ashmore, who is president of United Commercial Realty, lives in the Forest Hills neighborhood, down the street from the shopping center he oversees. He grew up in the area, graduating from Bryan Adams High School.

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“I understand it,” Ashmore says. “When you sell something you like, it’s easy to sell.”

More and more businesses appear to be hearing this message. Throughout our neighborhood, businesses are moving in to ride the boom of a positive economy and to take advantage of the demographics in East Dallas and surrounding neighborhoods.

Among the areas receiving the most attention:

  • City Place Market houses the Target store at Haskell and Central in Old Bryan Place. Since opening in October 1993, the store has performed better than anyone expected, drawing business from Downtown, East Dallas, South Dallas, the Park Cities and Oak Lawn. Its success helped attract an Office Max, and four more retailers will open soon. The center also recently signed a lease to open a 14-screen Sony movie theater.
  • The Sears building at Munger and Ross is expected to be bulldozed later this month to make way for a new development that will feature a Fiesta grocery store and several other service-oriented businesses.
  • Preserving the Dr Pepper building at Central and Mockingbird as a retail center has been the talk of the neighborhood. Rumors are flying that the historical site could house anything from a large book store to a movie theater to a clothing store. Many say the site is appealing to national retailers that want to take advantage of the demographics east and west of Central Expressway.
  • And down the street, Hillside Village Shopping Center has been successful in attracting several new businesses that are pumping life back into the center. Some of its newest tenants include Billy Blue’s Bar-B-Que and Juaritoz Grill.
  • Old Town Shopping Center at Lovers and Greenville soon will be home to a new Border’s Books and Tom Thumb. Each store will be one of the biggest of its kind in the area.

This retail boom isn’t unique to our neighborhood. Daniel Howard, chair of the Department of Marketing at Southern Methodist University, says retail businesses are expanding nationwide.

And Dallas is experiencing a boom bigger than the norm, with some parts of the City growing three times faster than the national growth rate.

He says many factors contribute to the growth – from demographics to population growth to the weather. And Dallas looks very appealing in each of these areas.

But don’t be fooled, Howard says. The economy, and with it the real estate and business industries, move in cycles.

“The ones who survive are the ones who provide a needed service,” Howard says. “When the demand declines, the weak fold first.”

Since December of 1992, the total occupancy rate of all retail spaces in our neighborhood has increased three percent, from 83 to 86 percent. Along Greenville Avenue, occupancy dropped from 90 to 76 percent because of the closure of Sears, says Sean Hockens, with MP/F Research, a real estate tracking firm.

But when the new center is completed at the location, the occupancy rate will shoot back up to 90 percent.

Many neighborhood centers emptied in 1986 when the bottom fell out of the economy. To attract tenants, many centers lowered their rents, and as the economy picked back up, businesses took advantage of the great deals, says Scott Coghlin, director of property management and leasing at Clements Realtors.

Coghlin has been involved in East Dallas commercial property for 15 years and has watched the market go up and down. He says even though the market in East Dallas is improving, neighborhood residents shouldn’t become too excited.

“Yeah, there’s stuff opening, but are they doing business?” Coghlin says. “We’re seeing a hump, but will it sustain? That’s the question.”

“You’re seeing a false start. It’s not going to be an explosion. If you want to see that, go down Preston.”

Coghlin says our neighborhood’s time to prosper isn’t here yet, but the best is yet to come – depending on what happens to the Dr Pepper site, which he says has the potential to attract some major players and turn our neighborhood’s retail climate around.

Robert Dozier, vice president of retail for Lincoln Properties, which owns and runs Old Town Shopping Center on Greenville, says the centers around Mockingbird and Central and along Greenville Avenue have the potential to attract the most business.

Dozier says national businesses are interested in moving into these areas to attract customers east and west of Central – the only problem is finding space for them.

“East Dallas has a void (in retail),” Dozier says. “Demographically, it’s a great area to put a store. University Park and the M Streets are demographically appealing to these retailers, and they want to tap into them.”

But deeper in East Dallas, centers such as the Lakewood Shopping Center aren’t as appealing to larger retailers.

Tim Kirk, vice president of Texas Commercial Properties Inc., which manages and leases a portion of the Lakewood Shopping Center, says because of the neighborhood demographics, the center is successful in attracting small businesses, but not large, national retailers.

Lakewood Shopping Center has an 87 percent occupancy rate, which for a neighborhood center is good, Kirk says.

“It takes a lot of hard work to get tenants attracted to that area,” Kirk says. “But when tenants come, they’re loyal.”

Kirk says he doubts a big, national retailer will ever move into the center.

“I do not feel this area would justify such a move,” Kirk says.

“(Lakewood Shopping Center) is going to cater to the mom-and-pop operations.”

But whether it be large, national stores moving to the outer limits of our neighborhood, or small businesses in the heart, Hockens says we can expect continued growth.

“The economy is supposed to remain fairly strong,” Hockens says. “It looks like that same gradual increase.”

And making sure our neighborhood gets its share of this boom will be East Dallas real estate investors, such as Ashmore at Casa Linda. He recently signed a lease with Brother’s Coffee, a national chain, and says in the next year the occupancy rate at Casa Linda could jump from 82 to 95 percent.

Ashmore says East Dallas’ success in attracting retailers is two-fold – the national trend of retail business is up, and many retailers are learning what East Dallas neighborhoods have to offer.

“East Dallas is a little more diverse,” Ashmore says, “so they don’t understand it.”

“I think East Dallas is the best-kept secret in Dallas.”