The Original Italian Pie restaurant in the Perkins Crossing shopping center has closed, bringing to three the number of vacancies in the retail strip center near the intersection of Perkins Road and Essen Lane.
Other retailers in the 33,000-square-foot shopping center that have shuttered their storefronts over the past year are Lady Tiger Depot, which sold LSU apparel, and an AT&T repair store, according to leasing agent Ty Gose of NAI/Latter & Blum, who says the departures were unrelated to one another.
The Original Italian Pie was one of two locations in the market for the restaurant chain, which is based on New Orleans’ West Bank. The Perkins Road restaurant had been open for about a decade. Gose attributes its closing to increased competition among pizza restaurants.
He already has several letters of intent from retailers interested in filling the vacancies, particularly the restaurant space.
“Restaurant space is in such high demand right now, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that we’ll get it leased soon,” he says. “We have some cool stuff working for those three suites.”
The effort to attract new tenants to Perkins Crossing comes as another new retail strip center is nearing completion just a block away at the intersection of Essen and Perkins. Ichiban Square, a three-building development that recently signed leases with Agave Blue Tequila and Taco Bar, Smoothie King, a yoga studio and a nail salon, is tucked behind yet another retail strip center, Essen Crossing, that fronts on Essen Lane.
Is there a need for more retail at that busy corner, given the challenges Perkins Crossing has faced retaining tenants?
It’s a hard question to answer, given the changing nature of retail, Gose says. With Amazon and other online shopping platforms disrupting traditional retail patterns and many big box retailers closing, it’s hard to say what kind of demand for shopping center space will exist.
“There’s a big unknown,” he says. “But what we’re seeing is that local concepts are thriving, so places like French Truck Coffee, Magpie Café and local bookstores are thriving, while the chains are going down. So it’s really a period of transition.”
That said, statistics suggest the market can support more retail centers, even developments in close proximity. Data presented at the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors annual TRENDS conference earlier this year showed demand for retail space has outpaced supply for the past three years, while vacancy rates during that period have remained low and in line with the national average—around 7.5%.
“Occupancy rates in Baton Rouge are really strong,” says appraiser Wesley Moore of Cook, Moore and Associates. “We haven’t seen massive amount of retail space going vacant. If we had, I’d say maybe there’s too much in that one little submarket, there’s just crazy demand here for retail space.”
—Stephanie Riegel
