Feature Article, December 2004
Flying To New Heights
Thomas Enterprises is developing a number of new projects around the country — and has a unique way of getting to them.
Randall Shearin
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The Forum at Peachtree Parkway, Atlanta.
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Stan Thomas has two passions: real estate and aviation. While the two industries are pretty diverse, Thomas has figured a way to integrate them: he built his company’s headquarters at a suburban Atlanta airport so he can fly to one of his projects at a moment’s notice.
In the 1980s, Thomas began as an Atlanta industrial and retail developer. In the 1990s, his business expanded to the Carolinas, Florida, Kentucky and Alabama. Today, the company is active all the way to California, with other projects in Arizona and Texas. Everyday, someone from the company is traveling to advance the ball in these developments. Thomas had always made the promise to his employees that he would try his best so that every night they could be at home with their families. A few years ago, when he purchased property adjacent to the Coweta County, Georgia, airport, he knew it was perfect for his headquarters.
“Being near an airport made a lot of sense,” says Thomas. “We can be working, and in 3 hours and 30 minutes be in a meeting in California.”
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Hamburg Pavilion, Lexington, Kentucky.
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Aside from aviation, though, Thomas Enterprises has some major real estate holdings. From its start as a land developer, Thomas quickly moved to becoming a big box developer in the Atlanta area. It later began to develop power centers and several Wal-Mart centers in the Southeast. Thomas was also a pioneer in the development of so-called mega-power centers; the company developed eight power centers over 1 million square feet in the late 1990s. It developed and expanded relationships with retailers like Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Target and PetsMart through those efforts and continues to work with them, and others, today.
One project that put Thomas on the map in the 1990s was its Fayette Pavilion in Fayetteville, Georgia, which at the time — at just over 1 million square feet — was one of the largest power centers in the U.S. Today, the company is working on an expansion of that center which will bring it to 1.6 million square feet.
In the 1990s, the company also operated Merchants Resource Realty, a tenant rep firm active in Georgia that represented Media Play, PetsMart and Target, among other retailers. Thomas later closed the very successful Merchants because it felt the agency posed too much of a conflict of interest with many of Thomas’ core customers. The company had also operated a management company that operated properties for institutional owners like CalSTRS, Equitable, PM Realty and TCW.
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At Hamburg Pavilion, Thomas Enterprises has combined a lifestyle center with a power center.
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Around 2000, Thomas took a look at its business and decided to make its own properties a focus. It closed its management company and turned its attention to its own centers. It cleaned its own portfolio up and sold a number of assets, including a nearly $1 billion portfolio to Inland Real Estate Corp. Thomas has continued to develop properties all along.
In the late 1990s, the company redeveloped Gulfgate Mall in Sarasota, Florida, into a lifestyle center. More recently, the company has developed several lifestyle centers and hybrid centers, such as its Hamburg Pavilion in Lexington, Kentucky, a power center with a lifestyle component. In 2001, the company developed the well-known The Forum at Peachtree Parkway, a highly regarded lifestyle center in suburban Atlanta that brought a number of first-time lifestyle center tenants to the area. Its successful track record has led the company to projects nationwide.
“The development industry is changing very quickly in order to meet the market demands,” says Thomas. “It used to be that a power center was a power center, a lifestyle center was a lifestyle center and a mall was a mall. All those lines are blurred now. The retail market has changed and we have to be smart enough to change with it.”
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Hamburg Pavilion, Lexington, Kentucky.
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In addition to continuing lifestyle center and hybrid center development, Thomas has also begun to develop several urban development projects. In Sacramento, California, the company is engaged with the city and Union Pacific Railroad in the development of the Union Pacific rail site in downtown Sacramento. The mixed-use development will have an intermodal station and 8,000 to 10,000 residential units. Retail and office also play a key role in the project.
The company is also working on the development of a parcel in downtown Phoenix in conjunction with city officials there. Thomas has also been active in acquiring large land tracts, getting them entitled for retail and residential, put infrastructure in, and then sell them to homebuilders. It has done this in Florida, Texas and California. Thomas currently owns 20,000 acres of land from California to Florida.
“We have to work a little bit outside of the box,” says Thomas. “We don’t want to focus on one thing. We want to be flexible to be quick and reactive to the market. We want to create projects that we are proud of and that will have lasting value.”
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The Forum at Carlsbad, Carlsbad, California.
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That said, Thomas does not develop cookie cutter projects. Most of the centers it has under development now combine a lifestyle center and a power center with residential and possibly other uses. In Carlsbad, California, the company is completing The Forum at Carlsbad lifestyle center, which Stan Thomas believes is the company’s best lifestyle center to date. In LaQuinta, California, it is developing a hybrid power lifestyle center anchored by Henry’s and Bed Bath & Beyond. In Sunnyvale, California, Thomas is working with owner Lehman Brothers to redevelop Sunnyvale Mall into a lifestyle center. In Newport Beach, the company plans to develop a waterfront retail project on an assemblage of properties that Thomas now controls. In Dothan, Alabama, Thomas is working to develop a Target-anchored power center.
Thomas has ventured into California with a track record of public approval that makes development in the state a little easier for it. The company’s developments have strong approval ratings from its neighbors, which make its entry into new areas easier. Residents near its Forum at Peachtree Parkway in Atlanta, for example, constantly write the company to tell them how much they love the center. In California, opposition for a project is a given, but Thomas Enterprises has had success in getting its projects through neighborhood approval so far. The company makes an effort to make its centers a part of the community.
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The Forum at Carlsbad, Carlsbad, California.
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“We believe in developing ownership for the neighborhood,” says Thomas. “The residents need to feel that it is their center, not our center. Through that, we do events like school fundraisings, and it really makes the community feel that they have a voice in what is happening at the center. In turn, they buy into it and they shop more at the center.”
In San Antonio, Texas, the company is developing a hybrid center called North Rim that consists of a village anchored by Bass Pro Shops and a theater, along with some lifestyle retail. Adjacent to, and surrounding the village is a 1 million-square-foot power center. A department store and numerous big boxes will anchor the power center. Residential, hotel and office space are also part of the mix. Thomas has already had success with the hybrid format. Its Hamburg Pavilion in Lexington, Kentucky, is a 1 million-square-foot part lifestyle, part power center that has tenants like Barnes & Noble, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Garden Ridge and Old Navy anchoring the power center part, and Chico’s, American Eagle, Gap, and Ann Taylor Loft who anchor the lifestyle village.
In Florida, the company is developing a massive project on 2,000 acres near the Orlando Convention Center called Universal Pavilion. The area will have residential development, as well as a grocery-anchored center and a power center. The retail component will total 800,000 square feet and the project will create a town center for the area. The company purchased the property on the southeast corner of Universal Boulevard and Sand Lake Road from Universal Vivendi.
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Chico’s is a tenant at Thomas Enterprises’ Forum at Carlsbad.
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The company currently has 19 projects under construction or completed, as close to home as its hometown of Newnan, Georgia, and as far away as Sacramento, California. In LaQuinta, California, Thomas is developing the Pavilion at LaQuinta, a 175,000-square-foot project anchored by Bed Bath & Beyond, Henry’s and several other big box retailers. In Dothan, Alabama, the company is developing Dothan Pavilion, a 620,000-square-foot Target-anchored power center which will boast a number of other anchors that typically follow Thomas and Target in such projects. Thomas has already developed a similar center in Huntsville, Alabama, called Westside Centre, also anchored by Target, as well as Dick’s Sporting Goods, CompUSA, Babies ‘R’ Us, and Bed Bath & Beyond. In Hiram, Georgia, the company is finishing up its development Hiram Pavilion, a 490,000-square-foot Super Target-anchored center.
In its hometown of Newnan, Thomas is continuing the development of Newnan Crossing, its 800,000-square-foot power center, by adding a lifestyle component called The Forum at Newnan Crossing. The Forum at Newnan Crossing will be a 600,000-square-foot lifestyle center anchored by a 14-screen theater, a bookstore and a major department store.
For the foreseeable future, Thomas has its hands full. But the company, with all of its land holdings and with a long list of potential developments, won’t be grounding any of its planes anytime soon — as there is much work to do in many places.
©2004 France Publications, Inc. Duplication or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization from France Publications, Inc. For information on reprints of this article contact Barbara Sherer at (630) 554-6054.
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