WICHITA — Almost 20 years after opening in Towne West Square, Lane Bryant is closing.
The store’s last day in business is Feb. 23.
The national chain, which specializes in plus-size women’s clothing, has had plans to close the Towne West store since a Lane Bryant opened in NewMarket Square in 2011.
Missy Meyer, manager of the NewMarket store, says there are no plans to close or move the Towne East Square Lane Bryant.
WICHITA — If a business person would like to do business with the Vatican, is it as easy as calling up and asking?
Almost. At least that’s how it seemed to go for Nathan Smith and Traci Smith-Cone of ’Til We Meet Again, the casket store at Towne West Square that’s turning into a national chain.
The day after Thanksgiving, Smith says he and Smith-Cone signed a deal with the Vatican for Vatican-licensed merchandise.
“We are the only source for retail for all Vatican caskets, urns and memorial products throughout the United States,” Smith says. “It’s been something we’ve been working on for quite some time.”
Another company used to have the exclusive license, he says.
“That company that was doing that fell on some hard times and bad management and are no longer in existence,” Smith says.
When he heard that, he says he called the Vatican to inquire about the license.
“Through a lot of negotiations and talks, we thought it brought a lot of value to have that license from the Vatican,” Smith says. “It’s going to be a pretty big license for us.”
The company is in the process of working with the Vatican and several manufacturers on developing lines for caskets, urns, grave markers, jewelry and keepsakes.
“It improves safety for everyone — not just individuals with disabilities.”
– Brian Coon, the city’s Americans With Disabilities coordinator, regarding a plan that could allow city buses onto property at Towne East and Towne West Squares
Michael Payton (from left), Jeff Englert and Grant Glasgow are trying to market a new Towne West Medical Plaza for a nontraditional approach to filling the mall.
WICHITA — Area mall manager Michael Payton is using a new saying to describe Simon Property Group malls such as Towne East Square and Towne West Square.
“The malls are starting to become the ‘alls.’”
He means the malls offer more than retail and restaurant options these days.
“We’re starting to see more and more nontraditional users work their way into the mall environment.”
The latest foray into a nontraditional use will be the new Towne West Medical Plaza, a potentially 50,000-square-foot area that could be home to a variety of medical users.
“Basically kind of a one-stop shop for different medical needs,” says Jeff Englert of Grubb & Ellis/Martens Commercial Group.
Englert and colleague Grant Glasgow are marketing the property, which will be on the west side of the mall between Sears and Dick’s Sporting Goods.
“This is something they’ve tried in other markets,” Glasgow says of Simon.
“You have a built-in customer base within Towne West mall.”
Glasgow says the mall has 6 million visitors annually.
Payton says the medical location will be convenient for patients, who also could be shoppers.
“They can do some shopping. They can eat.”
Glasgow says to see why this idea makes sense, look at the number of medical providers in the southwest Wichita area.
“It is by far the fewest in Wichita,” he says.
Englert says that area has only 1 percent of all medical offices in the city.
“Obviously, there’s a clear void,” he says. “That’s another reason why we thought this would be a good use of space.”
In addition to being convenient for patients, Glasgow says a medical plaza at the mall makes sense for doctors and dentists, too.
“This allows medical users to cluster,” he says. “They like to all be together.”
On-site management is another plus, he says.
“There are benefits like 24-7 security.”
The area likely will develop in phases.
“It will not cut off through the rest of the mall,” Englert says of access to shopping through that entrance.
WICHITA — The Habitat for Humanity ReStore shop is doubling its space with a move to the Plaza West shopping center at the southwest corner of Central and West.
“We are just growing,” says director Katrina McGuigan. “We’re getting a lot of good stuff coming in from our donors and just needed to find a bigger showroom floor space.”
The ReStore shop is a retail discount home improvement store that has new and used merchandise donated by the public.
“We exist to support Habitat for Humanity,” McGuigan says.
The current showroom is 6,000 square feet at the southwest corner of Harry and Hillside. The new one will be 12,000 square feet and have 3,000 square feet more for storage.
“Our loyal customers will easily follow us,” McGuigan says. “And we’ll have a whole new, fresh set of customers on that side of town.”
She says the new store will be in a more visible, high-traffic area with a Walmart Neighborhood Market in the same center and Dillons across the street.
“This just makes all the sense in the world for us.”
WICHITA — Willow Group continues to ink franchise deals for more ’Til We Meet Again stores, but the Wichita company has also experienced its first setback.
The chain’s first franchisee was to open a custom casket store in Glenbrook Square in Fort Wayne, Ind., in May, but Willow Group’s Nathan Smith says mall management changed its mind without giving him or local media a reason.
“Glenbrook Square officials likely sealed a casket company’s fate in Fort Wayne,” read the lead of a Journal Gazette story, which was one of several stories about the issue that appeared in local media outlets.
“It was a mess,” says Smith, who is partners in Willow Group with Traci Smith-Cone.
“Honestly, it took us by surprise,” Smith says. “We do everything we can in the beginning to make sure everything is secured.”
He says the mall took five months to approve the contract.
No one with Glenbrook could be reached for comment.
Smith says the franchisee lost about $100,000 on remodeling and other expenses when told she’d have to vacate the mall five days before opening. He says the store had a contract, but there was a clause that the mall could ask the store to leave at any time.
“We definitely worked quickly with the franchisee to minimize even more loss of funds,” Smith says. “At the time, it was a scramble.”
WICHITA — Has the mattress boom gone bust?
That was one reader’s question after noticing that – following the glut of new mattress stores in Wichita the last couple of years – the U.S. Mattress near Kellogg and Greenwich is closed along with the Mattress Hub clearance store at Central and West.
No one with U.S. Mattress could be reached for comment, but Mattress Hub co-founder Ryan Baty says business is great.
“The mattress business is a cutthroat business, but what allows you to succeed over time is giving customers a bigger, better deal and a variety of options.”
Baty says customers begin to focus more on price and options as a market gets saturated.
He says his chain’s clearance store didn’t close, but it did move to Towne West Square to capitalize on foot traffic.
The Mattress Hub at Towne East Square is being remodeled into a speciality sleep gallery that focuses on Tempur-Pedic and Serta iComfort gel beds.
The chain became a Tempur-Pedic Elite Retailer earlier this summer, which Baty says is the top distinction the company awards.
With Wichita already saturated, Baty says he’s working on two more stores in Kansas City, where he already has three Mattress Hubs.
“Our focus really is on Kansas City right now.”
UPDATED — On the heels of getting its first franchise in April, the Willow Group has inked a deal with an undisclosed group for 14 ’Til We Meet Again stores in Texas. All of them will be open no later than 2014.
“It’s huge,” says Nathan Smith, who is partners with Traci Smith-Cone in the venture.
The two opened the custom casket store in Towne West Square in 2010 with no plans to franchise.
That changed, though, and in April they landed their first franchise with a store in Glenbrook Square Mall in Fort Wayne, Ind.
Smith says they’ve just finalized a deal for a Milwaukee store, though the franchisee hasn’t signed a lease for mall space yet, and are close on a three-store deal in Phoenix.
Smith thinks the Texas deal will help him and Smith-Cone close other deals.
“For the folks that are out there that we’re talking to right now … those guys that are on the fence … seeing that definitely gets them off the fence quickly,” Smith says. “It helps legitimize what we’re doing.”
He says it gives other potential franchisees a sense of security to know “they’re not the first ones, and they’re not doing this by themselves.”
Smith says he and Smith-Cone have the infrastructure in place for the rapid expansion.
“That’s what is the best part about what we’re doing here and what makes this work,” he says.
WICHITA — It’s not exactly news when new space is available at a mall, but Jeff Englert makes a good case for 8,000 square feet that he and Grubb & Ellis/Martens Commercial Group colleagues are marketing at Towne East Square.
“To my knowledge, it’s the first time that Simon used third-party brokers in Wichita,” he says of Simon Property Group, which owns the mall.
Perhaps more significantly, Englert says, “They want to go after nontraditional mall tenants for this.”
Not that he and fellow brokers Nathan Farha and Grant Glasgow won’t look at retail.
“Retail is definitely going to be our first play there.”
However, Simon has had some luck with nonretail tenants, such as Wright Career College.
“They want to explore that some more,” Englert says.
The space is located on the west side of Towne East between Dillard’s and Sears at the second-most busy main entrance of the mall. Englert says it’s possible to add a glass exterior so the space is visible from outside the mall.
After retail, Englert says there could be possibilities such as office users, educational facilities or a fitness center.
He says he’ll soon have news on a new Towne West Square tenant.
“This will be pretty big news, let’s put it that way.”
Look for it in about a month or so.