After years of various delays, the Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc. has begun moving forward with plans to bring an upscale outlet center to a site adjacent to Texas Motor Speedway. The near-upscale outlet center will total about 350,000 square feet with more than 70 retailers that will anchor Champions Circle, a 279-acre mixed-use development.
So far, Tanger has signed real estate leases with Nike, Levi’s, Banana Republic, Gap, Skechers, Old Navy, Express, Carter’s and Oshkosh. “We’ve identified Fort Worth as one of the really great cities in the country that is underserved by a new contemporary outlet center,” Tanger Outlets CEO Steven Tanger told the Dallas Business Journal. “This whole area has been built out in the last two years,” Tanger added. “This will be a regional shopping destination that will have a draw from 20 to 30 miles away.”
Under an incentive package, the Greensboro, North Carolina-based outlet giant would need to invest $70 million to build the center by 2018 and have 350 full-time employees in place by the end of 2019. In return, Tanger would get back 85 percent of the city’s 1 cent sales tax for 15 years, or an estimated $25 million. Before Tanger Outlets begin construction, Tanger said the property will need to be 60 percent leased to retail tenants.
“Our goal is to begin construction before the end of the year, but we do not build on speculation,” he told me. “We have all our permits in hand and we will build from cash on hand, but we need at least 60 percent of the space committed to tenants.”
The Tanger Outlets in Fort Worth will anchor a mixed-use development built by Fine Line Diversified Development, which is an entity owned by Fort Worth developer and investor Ed Bass. The real estate development firm’s president and CEO Bill Boecker said Tanger made an ideal retail partner for Champions Circle at the prime intersection at Interstate 35W and State Highway 114. In all, the Tanger Outlets Center is expected to create more than 400 full- and part-time jobs in the as part of the project’s construction. Upon completion, the outlet center is expected to employ more than 900 full- and part-time retail jobs.
Champions Circle will also include a Marriott Hotel, Buc-ee’s Travel Center, hundreds of apartments and a 540,000-square-foot power center adjacent to the new outlet center with complementary stores and free-standing restaurants. Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage said he expects the development to be a boon to that part of the region. “Each year we attract more than a million racing enthusiasts and they will now have many options for additional shopping and entertainment during their stay,” he said.