Four months after losing two anchor stores, the Middleton Court shopping center is poised to be fully occupied.
Jason Perry, who owns the shopping center through the company Lewko Properties, said three stores — Owens Outfitters, Home Store Furnishings and Paul Davis — are in the process of moving into the vacant spots left behind after Tuesday Morning and Sports Center closed late last year.
Paul Davis, currently located on Lynn Lane, is moving into the former Tuesday Morning space, while Owens Outfitters and Home Store Furnishings are splitting the former Sports Center spaces. Midtown Outfitters has also relocated from Russell Street to the shopping center and is already open in the former Revolution Consignment location.
Tuesday Morning left the shopping center, which sits at the intersection of Highway 12 and Louisville Street, to relocate to a larger facility next to Bargain Hunt. Sports Center announced its closure at the end of the year in a Facebook post.
The new tenants are a quick turnaround for the shopping center.
“Big things are happening,” Perry said. “A lot of that went down pretty fast, but we had pretty much filled back up within a month. We had all these signed and deals put together pretty quickly.”
In addition to the new stores, Umi Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi Bar is expanding into an empty space behind a courtyard to the restaurant’s immediate west.
Billy Wang, Umi owner, said the expansion will add about 40 new seats to the restaurant’s 150 and additional kitchen space for boiling seafood. The boiling seafood option will allow Umi to add about 10 new items to the menu.
The new stores
J.D. Owens, owner of Owens Outfitters, said the store is an outdoor sporting goods store with emphasis on archery and footwear. He said the store will have a soft opening in May and a grand opening in early August.
Owens is a former Sports Center employee who worked at the store until it closed. He said his store, which will have about 12 employees at any given time — a number that could rise to around 20 during the holidays — will retain several former Sports Center employees.
“We’ve totally renovated the inside of the place,” Owens said. “Folks will come in the same door and be blown away. It will seem to them as if they walked into an entirely different location.”
Home Store Furnishings will be a full-service furniture store that is an expansion of Mattress Store & More on Highway 12 in west Starkville.
Josh Moorehead, the general manager, said the store will employ 10 to 15 people.
“We’ve had that shop in the old Blockbuster building,” he said. “We’re going to close it down and wanted to bring a nice furniture store to Starkville. Basically, we’re expanding and changing.”
Moorehead said the new store doesn’t have a definite open date yet, but he hopes to open by the end of April.
Perry said Home Store Furnishings will have 16,000 square feet and will fill the spot between Owens Outfitters and Umi. It will be, by space, the largest tenant in the shopping center.
As for Paul Davis, Abby Thompson, the store’s general manager, said the company focuses on restoring water, fire and storm damage, along with cleanups and repairs.
“We sell flooring right now,” she said. “We found that people wanted a place to visit and look at samples and make a decision about improving their homes after damage, so we decided to open a showroom.”
The new location will continue to serve people who are looking to restore their homes after damage. However, Thompson said it will also have a showroom for the general public, for people who are looking to remodel or renovate.
Thompson said the new store is expected to be open by June 1. The old location, on Lynn Lane, will close after the new one opens.
Paul Davis is currently hiring. Thompson said the company is looking to grow its workforce from eight people to 15.
Location
Perry said he thinks Middleton Court’s location is a primary reason for why it was able to rebound so quickly.
“Highway 12 and Louisville Street is one of the busiest intersections in town,” Perry said. “It’s in the middle of town and leads to Lynn Lane, where they’re (the city) investing in sidewalks and potentially investing in the parks over there in the next few years. That’s one of the reasons we’ve been able to fill it up.”
Perry added Middleton Court is a second-generation shopping center, which means it has been renovated, and that helps it offer lower rent prices than a newly-built center could.
“It’s the highest-traffic area in Starkville,” he said. “It’s the nicest shopping center in Starkville. It’s got a newly paved parking lot with tons of parking. There are nice restaurants with established businesses there, so that was a big draw for us.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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