News
The Sundance Kid
March 23, 2011
| Increased leasing, retail sales records, and Mike & Mike in the Morning hanging out in Sundance Square last month. Yeah, things have been as cool as the other side of the pillow since ESPN was in town. All that adds up to some cautious optimism, says Sundance Square prez and CEO Johnny Campbell. | |
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| From the Wells Fargo Tower, Johnny tells us that office leasing haspicked up across Cowtown. Fort Worth?s hotel occupancies fullyabsorbed the addition of the Omni, which doubled the number of upscale hotel rooms in the CBD. Sundance merchants had their best ever retail sales in a January, and it looks like February will be the same. There were the Super Bowl crowds and (get this) a Monday Valentine?s Day. And that matters because? It meant two weekends of lovebirds celebrating. There's the earlybirds who celebrated the week before, the holiday itself, and then the lovers who celebratedlate (which we think used to simply be called forgetting Valentine's Day). | |
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| Sundance Square continues to bask in the post-Super Bowl glow, Johnny says. At least a couple of hotel developers have called and expressed interest in locating in the area. Talk about Fort Worth was even circulating at a recent meeting planners? association meeting. (We wonder who plans those meetings.) ?There is a convention and hospitality buzz going around the city,? Johnny says. Retailers are calling and there have also been leasing inquiries, with people asking about where the potential offices are in relation to the mural and ESPN shots they saw on TV. It's gotten into the psyche of folks who are thinking about being in this area for all kinds of businesses, he says. | |
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| While the weather didn't cooperate with the Super Bowl plans, it worked out okay in Sundance Square, where having all the activities located within walking distance was key, Johnny tells us. Retail also rocked, most certainly. Lids LockerRoom had a pop-up storethere for two weeks, and the Friday before the game, it set an all-time one-day sales record out of its more than 900 stores (which have been around for 15 years). They doubled that Friday record the following day, he says. They even had to put someone at the door with a clicker to keep track of how many people were in the store at one time. ?You don't see that too often in a retail store,? he says. And, Riscky?s Barbecue, which has been in Sundance for more than 20 years, set an all-time single sales record on that Friday before the game, then beat it the next day. | |
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| For those who missed this talk Johnny gave a few weeks back (it was only for finance types, so don't fret if you weren't on the list), you can hear more about Sundance Square and the ESPN broadcasts at the Bisnow Fort Worth State of the Market. Johnny is on our star-studded panel with Crescent managing director John Zogg, Red Oak Realty president Jim Eagle, JLL managing director Todd Burnette, and Jackson Walker's Susan Halsey. It's March 30 at the Fort Worth Hilton. Sign up here. And, when you go, ask Johnny about his newest obsession: his iPad. He says he can read about a half-dozen newspapers (and Bisnow, we assume) with his morning coffee. The avid outdoorsman also enjoys fishing, especially at his parents? Arkansas family farm. It has a series of ponds where he's located the best fishing holes, a means to impress family and friends. There's a fish story to hear, we suspect. | |
