After nearly three years and some $6 million in improvements, the Drusilla Village Shopping Center that developer Donnie Jarreau bought in 2014 is nearly 100% occupied, with several new tenants having recently signed leases.
Among the new tenants to the shopping center are: PC Healthcare Pharmacy, an independently owned pharmacy; Metro PCS, a national retail chain that sells phones; Allied Benefits Solutions; Shu Shu’s Bar; and Fun Hair, a salon. As reported earlier this year, Fit 365, a new health club, also recently opened in the shopping center.
“I never thought it would take this long to stabilize the center,” Jarreau says. “It’s a lot longer than I would have liked, but then I never thought two major tenants would declare bankruptcy.”
In 2015, RadioShack declared bankruptcy and closed its Drusilla location, among hundreds of others nationwide. The chain again filed for bankruptcy last week—its second such filing in two years. In 2016, Hancock Fabrics declared bankruptcy and shuttered all of its stores around the country. Together, those two tenants had leased about 15% of the 140,000-square-foot center, which was built in the 1960s.
“When they closed we fell to about 75% occupancy,” Jarreau says. “Now, we’re back up to more than 97%.”
While the new tenants have brought the shopping center to nearly complete occupancy, Jarreau will soon be looking again to fill a sizable portion of Drusilla Village.
Best Buy, which leased the former Hancock Fabrics space after the flood last year to use as a distribution facility, is moving out later this spring. Jarreau says he is currently looking for a new tenant to lease the 12,000-square-foot space.
Jarreau paid $10.5 million to acquire the shopping center three years ago. He now says he invested at least $3 million in improvements and upgrades to the shopping center. LeBlanc’s Food Stores also invested $3 million or so improving the center’s anchor tenant space, which it took over in the fall of 2015 from Hi Nabor Supermarket. LeBlanc’s has since been acquired by Rouses supermarket.
—Stephanie Riegel
