Sunday update: We’ve added the link to the marketing piece here.
In what has to rank as a stunning but welcome development, Trammel Crow Company is circulating a real estate marketing brochure that features a 100,000-square-foot JCPenney store — along with what could be up to a 300,000-square-foot Wal-Mart — as the two anchors of Timbercreek Crossing, the retail development soon to be rising like a phoenix on the 44-acre Timbercreek apartments site at Skillman and Northwest Highway. Joining the mix are Chick-fil-A, Bank of America, and a number of other retailers/restaurants that haven’t been announced and/or signed yet.
We’ve already made a couple of phone calls to track down more information, and we’ll update this as soon as we hear something.
And yes, you read that right: JCPenney. New store. Here in our neighborhood.
It turns out the old-line department store/retailer is opening 250 new and relocated stores between now and 2011; the most recent block of 22 new stores includes one in Sherman. Penney’s even has a website devoted to their new stores. Another new one is slated for Rockwall.
The new Penney’s stores "showcase the company’s major brand concepts," according to the Dallas Business Journal (which hasn’t yet reported on the new Skillman store, although the Rockwall one is mentioned). Many of the stores feature something called a Sephora Inside JCPenney boutique, a 1,500-square-foot beauty concept, the DBJ says.
The rest of the Timbercreek Crossing site plan marketing piece features a glowing halo hovering over a rather stylish-looking building that turns out to be the Wal-Mart, along with what looks like a mammoth entry feature on the connecting road between Skillman and Northwest Highway.
Word to the wise: If that is going to be the major entrance to this monstrous site, State Farm and Farmers should look for a nearby storefront. There are going to be a hellacious number of accidents there, with people already whizzing along the current connector from Skillman to Northwest Highway. Dumping a lot of traffic out on that connector (even if it’s widened) seems like a horrible idea; in fact, I can’t believe the city’s traffic people will even allow that to occur.
Overall, though, I’d have to say that Crow has done a good job of preventing this site from turning into what might be considered a typical Wal-Mart installation, with a big box and lots of parking and that’s all that is visible from the street. And remember, the first reports going around said there might be a Sam’s Club/Wal-Mart combo on the site.
The facades of the buildings, which I realize are probably just marketing puffery, still exhibit a pretty decent architectural feel for big boxes, and the Chick-fil-A and Bank of America are essentially facing Northwest Highway and Skillman.
Given what’s happening here, along with the apartments that are being torn down just south of the Medallion Target across the street, you have to think we’re in for a whole bunch of new retail in this neighborhood pretty soon.
