Cabo Sports Grill, a 13,000-square-foot restaurant and entertainment center, is going into the Mesa Riverview shopping center across the street from Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill.
Stan Sanchez, president and partner at De Rito Partners Inc., owners of the power center at Loop 202 and Dobson Road, said the restaurant will feature billiards and other activities in addition to food and drinks.
“It will be sort of a mini Dave & Buster’s, a family-fun kind of place,” he said.
The restaurant will occupy existing space. Tenant improvements will take the rest of the year to complete. The opening is tentatively set for the first quarter of 2011.
Three other restaurants have signed leases at Mesa Riverview as well. Matta’s Grill & Cantina, a former downtown Mesa mainstay, has moved into a 5,000-square-foot space. IHOP Restaurants is building a 4,200-square-foot eatery; and Volcano Buffet, a Chinese restaurant, will move into 5,100 square feet within 30 days.
“Who says nothing is going on in the market?” Sanchez said.
David Wetta, managing director of Faris Lee Investments, said almost nothing is going on in the retail market as that segment languishes under the weight of weak consumer confidence and spending.
He said the situation at Mesa Riverview is “a bit of an anomaly.” He likens it to CityScape in downtown Phoenix and the Scottsdale Pavilions in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, because those two developments offer some unique benefits.
CityScape is just coming online and represents a major, unprecedented retail inroad to the urban core. Scottsdale Pavilions is near the new Talking Stick Resort & Casino as well as the Arizona Diamondbacks’ spring training facility under construction immediately to the north.
The uptick in activity at two or three locations Valleywide is not a market indicator, said Wetta: “There’s still leases being lost.”
De Rito also owns Scottsdale Pavilions. The shopping center at Indian Bend and Pima Roads was one of the first power centers in the country, but fell on hard times in recent years as numerous national retailers went out of business, leaving several large spaces vacant. Now that Salt River Fields is under construction, retailers are back in talks with De Rito.
A food court is under construction at the Pavilions and will open in November. The former Harkins Theatres are being redeveloped as the UltraStar Cinemas, a Southern California-based company.
Other retailers that either have moved into the Pavilions this summer or will soon include the Arizona Art Alliance, Barro’s Pizza, Distinctive Interiors and Design, Lax Locker, Raw Edge and Z-Coil Footwear.
“I can’t get into details about the anchor tenants we’re negotiating with, but I can tell you that a lot is going on,” said CEO Marty De Rito.
Read more: De Rito filling Mesa, Scottsdale retail centers - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle)
