Gilbert strip mall hits retail jackpot

• Gilbert’s Greenfield Plaza all but dried up after losing its grocery anchor in 2009
• New ownership has recruited several businesses into the strip mall, including restaurants
• A family entertainment center opened in the vacant grocery space this summer

At 95 percent vacancy and without an anchor, Gilbert’s Greenfield Plaza was a retail wasteland when it sold at foreclosure auction in May 2011.

The strip mall’s grocery store, a Bashas’, had closed in 2009, setting off a downward spiral among the small businesses left behind.

“We don’t have any customers right now,” the owner of a foot spa said at the time. “People don’t come here,” a neighboring Thai restaurant owner added. Both stores eventually closed.

Four years later, the southwestern corner of Greenfield and Baseline roads is now teeming with new shops as the center bounces back.

A mix of restaurants, services and now an entertainment center inside the former Bashas’ space has made the plaza one of the Valley’s best economic comeback stories. There’s now only one small vacant space among the 16 storefronts.

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It didn’t happen by accident, nor without significant effort. A new ownership group, led by several partners who live in the area, took a personal interest in reviving the nearly-dead center.

When Arizona Gold Properties bought Greenfield Plaza in 2011 for about $3.2 million, there were about 320 similarly empty big-box retail stores across Maricopa County.

“We took a huge risk,” said Rob Friend, a principal in Arizona Gold Properties. “But we all live in the Gilbert/Mesa area, and our office is just a mile away. So we knew we could really put our heart and soul into making the center successful.”

Rather than simply drawing up a marketing brochure and waiting for potential tenants to call, Arizona Gold Properties handpicked some of the companies they wanted to bring into their neighborhood.

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Gecko Grill was one of the early hits. The popular Mexican food restaurant had closed after a long run at Gilbert and Guadalupe roads, and its re-opening at Greenfield Plaza in 2013 was celebrated with large crowds of eager diners.

“It’s one of my personal favorites,” Friend said. “We knocked on their door and said, ‘What could we do to get you to re-open at our center?’ ”

Utah-based restaurant chain Blue Lemon, branded as a place for clean, healthy food, opened in the strip mall in early 2014. It, too, was recruited to Gilbert, after an Arizona Gold Properties partner ate at a Blue Lemon in Salt Lake City, Friend said.

Even while the restaurants and other retail spaces began to fill up, Greenfield Plaza had a gaping, 53,000-square-foot hole with the vacant Bashas’ building.

The first thing the new owners did was cross “grocery” off the list of possible uses for the empty shell. Walmart, Fry’s, Safeway and Fresh & Easy are all within a mile of the strip mall, Friend said.

Family entertainment, on the other hand, was something in much shorter supply in Gilbert, a booming suburb known as a popular community for families.

Friend and his partners scoured the country looking for the right family fun center to recruit to their plaza and eventually honed in on Fat Cats, another Utah-based company.

“We went and knocked on their door,” Friend said. “We said, you need to be in Gilbert, Arizona, and here’s why.”

Fat Cats marketing coordinator Trevor Cannon said the company was attracted by Gilbert’s impressive growth, its demographics and family-friendly reputation.

Gilbert boasts some of the highest income levels in the Valley, with a median household income of more than $80,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s 61 percent higher than the state median and more than any other major Valley city, including Scottsdale.

Greenfield Plaza is part of the Val Vista Lakes community, which is also home to one of the wealthiest subdivisions in the southeast Valley, according to Census data. The shopping center also has access to a major freeway with U.S. 60 just a half-mile to the north.

Fat Cats opened in June with bowling, six movie theaters, glow-in-the-dark mini golf and an arcade. The Gilbert location is the company’s sixth, and its first with reclining seats in its movie theaters, Cannon said.

Arizona Gold Properties sold the former Bashas’ to Fat Cats, which then put millions of dollars into redeveloping the space.

A pizza and pasta restaurant has replaced the bakery area, and the grocery storerooms now hold the pin setters for 20 bowling lanes.

The movie theaters hold a combined 660 seats and, unlike many theaters, patrons reserve a specific seat when they buy their tickets, general manager Bob Short said. In all, the renovation project cost around $14 million, Short said.

The addition of Fat Cats as an anchor caps what has been a major transformation for Greenfield Plaza. With just one vacant storefront left, there’s not much room for more growth, but a new businesses is set to open in September.

The Soda Shop, described as the “Chipotle of soda,” will let customers choose a mix of flavors for their bubbly drink, Friend said. The shop will have a drive-through along with indoor seating and bakery-type fare.

“It’s another unique concept to the Arizona market,” Friend said. “It’ll be a fun little shop for people to hang out at.”

Arizona Gold Properties has owned and managed shopping centers for nearly two decades and has property in Arizona, California and Colorado. But what’s happened in Gilbert has been “one of the most exciting redevelopment projects we’ve done,” Friend said.