CANTON, OH-Nassimi Realty plans a total makeover for its Canton Centre Mall, tearing the 433,500-sf property inside out to attract new tenants. The property on Tuscarawas Street West was purchased by Nassimi in October 2004, and a new 200,000-sf Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in spring 2005, which company president Mike Nassimi says was a catalyst for bringing in new customers. He says there is not a complete budget yet for the project, but that it will cost more than $5 million. Nassimi tells GlobeSt.com that the interior mall model, unless it’s in a climate where indoor comfort is a necessity, is dead. “More and more people are in a hurry, they don’t want to walk through a mall. People like to drive up to the store destination and do their shopping,” he says. “When we did our first de-malling about 12 to 15 years ago, we were one of the first to do it. It can be successful in most cases, if done correctly. At the end of the day, you’re going to attract more stores. Think of it this way, there are retailers who do well in an interior space and exterior space, and those that can only do interior malls. Since there’s way more strip centers than internal malls, there are more retailers to attract with an exterior format.”

He says bringing the retailers outside can give them improved visibility, without having to rely on anchors, which in this case are J.C. Penney’s and Macy’s. Also, the move will drastically reduce the common area costs paid by the tenants, as they won’t be paying for maintenance of the interior, air conditioning and other fees. The tenants now pay about $16 to $17 net, Nassimi says. “We’ve already had eight to 10 serious interests and lease negotiations, when for the last three years we tried to get these same retailers to come in and they weren’t interested,” Nassimi says. He refused to name the retailers, saying that new tenants will be announced in the upcoming months.

The construction will be done in a number of phases, he says. The first phase will include construction of a new 10,000-sf outlot building, which should be complete by January, on the corner of Tuscarawas Street and Whipple Avenue. The next phases will be a redesign of the shopping center’s facade, a redesign to the J.C. Penney’s entrance, the opening of additional stores and the expansion of the Chase Bank drive-thru into a full-bank building.