Longtime tenants like Roberts Health Foods say the improvements to Eastland Shopping Center have made a difference. / Photo courtesy BC Wood Properties
Lexington’s oldest shopping center is getting a facelift.
Eastland Shopping Center, built in 1956 on Winchester Road near New Circle Road, is home to longtime tenants including Harbor Freight, Roberts Health Foods, Save-A-Lot and more.
Brian Wood
Recently shoppers may have noticed several upgrades to the center’s exterior, including a new marquee, removal of dated awnings and the installation of a new façade, new exterior lighting and new, more modern-looking signage for its tenants along the section closest to Industry Road.
BC Wood Properties, which has owned and managed Eastland Shopping Center since 2001, has already invested roughly $2 million in the improvements, with another $1 million to come as work continues on the remaining portions of the shopping center over the next 18 to 24 months.
“Our goal for Eastland is to keep it competitive,” said BC Wood CEO Brian Wood. “With the growth of the Winchester Road corridor, including the opening of the new high school, we feel like we are in a pivotal location with a lot of opportunity for small businesses to thrive.”
Necessity-based retail
Last August, the Lexington Police Department cut the ribbon on its new, 17,000-square-foot central sector roll call center, where patrolling officers for that sector start their day, in Eastland Shopping Center along the section bordering Industry Road.
“The improvements had been in the works for a long time, but [the addition of the new call center] was the jump-start to the rejuvenation,” said BC Wood’s Lee Cowden, the asset manager for Eastland.
The Lexington Police Department’s new 17,000-square-foot roll call center, opened last August, helped spur renovations to the aging shopping center. / Photo courtesy BC Wood Properties
Situated on 37 acres with roughly 340,000 square feet of leasing space, Eastland currently has a 94 percent occupancy rate. Its prime location at the crossroads of Winchester Road and New Circle, which see a combined traffic count of more than 70,000 vehicles per day, make it an attractive location for both national chains and local businesses alike.
“Since the start of the renovations, we’ve already seen an increase in leasing calls,” said Wood, whose Lexington-based BC Wood Properties purchased Eastland for $10 million in 2001. The purchase of Eastland was BC Wood’s largest capital investment at the time and a pivotal move in the overall growth of the company, which now owns 36 shopping centers across 11 states.
“We are not trying to make Eastland into something it’s not. Eastland provides necessity-based retail,” Wood said. “Over the years, the retail spaces at Eastland have changed from several different types of uses, but the center still maintains the sense that, when you come here, everybody gets the most bang for their buck, whether you’re eating, getting a haircut or picking up some groceries.”
Hands-on management
On a recent walk-through of the center, Cowden and Jason Gentner, BC Wood’s vice president of leasing and operations, noted ongoing work to replace older-style, square “box signs” with more modern, back-lit channel letter signs, which allow retailers’ names to have more individuality and pop. Workers will also continue to modernize and beautify the center’s exterior façade, section by section, using a product called EIFS (Exterior Insulation and Finish Systems), which has a stucco-like texture. Eventually, the entire center will be resurfaced and painted in a palette of earth-tone colors.
Lee Cowden, asset manager of Eastland Shopping Center, says the company takes a hands-on approach to managing its properties, including optional marketing assistance. / Photo courtesy BC Wood Properties
Sybil Frantz Skinner, owner of longtime tenant Roberts Health Foods, where exterior renovations have already been completed, said the location at Eastland has been a great fit for her business. “Our customers know us, and it’s like a family here,” she said.
Gentner said he feels that BC Wood’s hands-on approach to managing Eastland helps set it apart from other companies. “A lot of properties are managed by third-party folks. We are here in Lexington. We own this center. We lease it. We property manage it. Someone from our company is at this shopping center every day in some form or capacity,” he said.
“We work hard to continually improve our partnerships with our retailers and businesses." —BC Wood asset manager Lee Cowden
In addition to what Cowden calls a “healthy mix” of both national chains and local retailers, the center is home to many businesses that offer services customers cannot get online, including a dance studio, a barber shop, a chiropractor’s office and a cell phone repair shop.
Several local businesses, including cell phone and electronic repair shop Smart Point LLC, have found Eastland to be the perfect launching point for their companies.
“The owner signed a lease with us in April 2017. This was his first storefront and his first business venture,” said Cowden. “Business has picked up so much, he’s moving to the space adjacent and doubling his size.”
Another success story is recent Eastland addition Nefertiti, which serves affordable Mediterranean cuisine and has racked up favorable reviews and a dedicated clientele in just a few months.
“They’re always busy, and their food is delicious,” said Mallory Sikes, a marketing specialist for BC Wood Properties who also heads the company’s new REnew Media division, which provides optional marketing services—from help with ribbon cuttings and grand openings to ongoing social media and traditional advertising—for BC Wood tenants.
“With the addition of REnew Media, we felt like, if we could help individual tenants increase their traffic. Then traffic increases for the whole center, and it benefits everyone,” Sikes said.
“We don’t just drop our tenants after the lease is signed,” said Cowden. “We work hard to continually improve our partnerships with our retailers and businesses, even after they’ve been with us for years.”