A new restaurant concept is coming to the space in the Acadian Village Shopping Center formerly occupied by Pei Wei Asian Diner, but shopping center management is not yet ready to disclose the name of their new tenant.
“We don’t want to steal their thunder,” says Hilary Bransford, a leasing agent with Vintage Realty in Shreveport, which manages the 79,000-square-foot shopping center.
What Bransford will say is that the restaurant will be a new concept for Baton Rouge and is the first of its kind in the market. She expects the restaurant to open in a couple of months after completing renovations to the 3,400-square-foot space.
Pei Wei opened in Acadian Village, which is located at the intersection of Perkins Road and South Acadian Thruway, in early 2014. It closed last summer, after the Scottsdale, Arizona-based chain decided to shutter all three of its Louisiana restaurants because they were underperforming.
Acadian Village, which is anchored by Trader Joe’s, was developed by Commercial Properties Realty Trust at a cost of about $18 million and opened in October 2013. The real estate firm sold the development a year later for $32.5 million to Dallas-based Crow Holdings, Inc. At the time of the sale, the shopping center was 100% occupied and generating about $2 million annually in net operating income.
—Stephanie Riegel
