Discount Store News: June 5, 1989
(Excerpt) CINCINNATI -- Bigg's is set to anchor three off-price and mixed-use shopping centers due to open over the next three years, one in Denver that will mark the hypermarket's expansion outside of its home here and two in nearby Louisville, Ky.Bigg's plans to open at least three other hypermarkets, including another in Denver and one in Tampa Bay, over the next few years.
The decision by Bigg's to anchor the three off-price malls denotes a growing trend in the shopping center field whereby hypermarkets are used as the full-line retail attraction for outlet and multi-use malls. Hypermarkets' marketing of foods and general merchandise and their avoidance of the term discounter in favor of such expressions as everyday low price makes them a favorite candidate to anchor such shopping centers.
The three Bigg's, one to open in each of the next three years, will double the chain's count to six units--five hypermarkets and one warehouse food store. Bigg's, which has two hypermarkets and one food-only store in Cincinnati, is owned by Hyper Shoppes, a venture headed by Euromarche, a French hypermarket chain, with participation by other French firms and Super Valu Stores, parent of ShopKo and Twin Value.
Construction is almost finished on the 250,000-square-foot Bigg's to open this fall as one of the anchors for the $100 million, 700,000-square-foot Thornton Town Center in the Denver suburb of Thornton.
The L.J. Hooker Co., the Atlanta-based shopping center developer arm of the $1.5 billion Hooker Corp. Ltd. of Australia, is building the multi-use Thornton mall, along with the two Louisville centers that will also house Bigg's hypermarkets. The two Louisville centers are in the planning stage, a Hooker representative said.
The Thornton mall will include three other as yet unnamed department stores, a manufacturers' outlet area with 60 stores, and such other facilities as a movie theatre and an entertainment center with a miniature golf course, carousel and midway rides.
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