Clarksdale shopping center
follows Wal-Mart
City tightens grip on regional retail destination

By RICHARD COTTON
DBJ Contributing Writer

George Currin knows his marketing strategy is a winner. It’s worked time and time again.
The co-owner of Charlotte, N.C.-based Currin-Patterson Properties develops retail centers near locations of the nation’s largest retailer.

“We specialize in (developing) outparcels to Wal-Mart Supercenters,” Currin said in a phone interview from his lakeside house near Charlotte, where he was taking time off to construct a boat dock. Currin has built shopping venues – most near Wal-Marts – from Texas to Florida.
Clarksdale’s new Supercenter is what attracted Currin to the Delta city. But it’s not the first time he’s been there. Currin built the Cato Center in Clarksdale a decade ago. His first venture to follow a Supercenter in Mississippi was up the road in Senatobia.

“That was tremendously successful,” Currin recalled. “When I heard of Clarksdale, I went there and could not find any land adjacent to (Wal-Mart) so I went down the street near Kroger.”

Even before Wal-Mart announced it would abandon the old conventional Wal-Mart facility in Clarksdale and build an 80,0000-square-foot Supercenter, Currin was anticipating the change: “I felt they would move,” he said.

Within a stone’s throw of what would be the new Supercenter location in south Clarksdale, Currin took an option on an 8-acre parcel that was available. He figures to fill it up in two phases, beginning with what could be a 25,000-square-foot strip center – plans are still being finalized. The project is valued at $3 million.

“We kept in touch,” said Hal Fiser, principal real estate broker in Clarksdale’s Hal Fiser Agency. “As soon as Wal-Mart announced, we moved on it.” Fiser had handled the previous Currin land deal.

Fiser points out that the Currin-Patterson development and another nearby project by a Texas-based firm are important to the city.

“This means a lot to Clarksdale because it fills in the area close to Wal-Mart,” Fiser explained. “The 8-acre site is ideally located because it perfectly fits the commercial layout.

“We’re getting to be an area-wide shopping center.”

The quest to establish itself as a regional destination for shopping is well underway in Clarksdale. Fiser says the city draws consumers from all of Coahoma County as well as from northern Bolivar and Tallahatchie counties, western Quitman, southern Tunica and even out of Arkansas.

“That side of town has really taken off in the last 10 years,” Ron Hudson observed of the southwestern side of the city that he serves as executive director of the Clarksdale-Coahoma County Chamber of Commerce.

With the recent completion of the U.S. 61 bypass, the Miss. 161 (former U.S. 61) corridor is fast becoming the place to be for retailers. Hudson said “anything to add additional retail space is an important part of our economy.”

He said an increase in sales tax revenue, which has been down for more than six years, will be a welcome relief. Hudson expects developments like Currin’s will attract more and more shoppers to the area.

In the wake of development, more development is possible, since Hudson said he regularly fields inquiries from companies interested in locating retail outlets in the Clarksdale area: “It’s a synergistic type of thing,” he related.

“It speaks well for the community to have people come in and invest money here.” Hudson added that other factors like two colleges and a strong health care system are incentives for investment.

Currin said his new shopping center should be ready for occupancy – those occupants have not been named – in late spring of next year. DBJ