Retail

FORT WORTH, TEXAS — The grand opening will be held this weekend for Alliance Town Center, a 1.5 million-square-foot power center located at the intersection of Interstate 35 and Heritage Trace Parkway in Fort Worth. Opening this weekend is the approximately 500,000-square-foot, first phase of the project. Approximately 20 tenants are already open for business including retailers Belk, JC Penney, Best Buy, Hobby Lobby, PetSmart and Ulta; as well as restaurants Cheddar’s, Which Wich, Jason’s Deli and Smoothie King. A 256,865-square-foot Sam Moon is currently under construction and scheduled to open in March 2009. Future phases will add a large grocer, a movie theater, a national bookstore and a large sporting goods store to the tenant roster. Alliance Town Center is a joint venture development between locally based developers Hillwood and Trademark Property Co. It is part of AllianceTexas, a 19,000-acre master-planned community that also comprises an airport, more than 7,000 acres of industrial space, 800 acres of office space, 2,700 single-family homes and 5,000 multifamily residential units.

RICHMOND, VA. — In conjunctions with its plans to close 155 underperforming retail locations nationwide, Richmond-based Circuit City has announced the closing of nine Texas locations. The stores are located in Burleson, Cedar Park, Dallas, Houston, League City, Mansfield, McKinney, Sherman and Temple. Each market will see one Circuit City location close, and Sherman will see Circuit City exit the market with the closing of the city’s only location.Circuit City is closing stores in 55 U.S. markets and will be exiting 12 of those markets entirely. In addition, the retailer is reducing future store openings and aggressively renegotiating select leases.