Edinburg's The Shoppes at RGV moving to grow to about 1/3 the size of La Plaza Mall

Shoppes could reach comparable size

April 15, 2011 8:06 AM

Dave Hendricks

The Monitor

EDINBURG — The Connecticut-based developer behind The Shoppes at Rio Grande Valley has announced plans to build a 90,000-square-foot expansion next to J.C. Penney.

First Hartford sold land to McDonald’s for a restaurant along Trenton Road and will build the expansion west of J.C. Penney, said Paul Rappaport, the development’s general manager. Anna’s Linens, GNC and Petco will occupy the new space, which should be open for business during 2012.

“These things, the way they work, once you start building momentum, they build themselves,” said Pedro Salazar, executive director of Edinburg’s Economic Development Corporation.

With the expansion, the Shoppes will have 428,000 square feet of retail space anchored by J.C. Penney, Academy Sports + Outdoors and Burlington Coat Factory. Together, the three anchors occupy 78 percent of existing retail space, according to First Hartford’s most recent annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

At one time, concept drawings for The Shoppes showed a pedestrian-friendly outdoor mall with an urban feel, resembling a condensed version of Palms Crossing in McAllen. A more recent design show stores arranged in a huge loop around a massive parking area.

First Hartford eventually plans to build 1.1 million square feet of “gross leasable area,” an industry term encompassing everything from retail to office space, according to a company brochure. With less than a third of the project completed, the development’s final look ...

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Photo:

Nathan Lambrecht | nlambrecht@themonitor.com 

Juan Mata, left, and Roy Cantu, of Eberle Materials out of Donna, look over plans Wednesday morning, April 13, 2011, while working on a site that will become a McDonald's next to The Shoppes at Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg.