New Mesa mall geared to growing Asian community

It’s no Chinatown, but it’s the closest thing the East Valley will have.

Representatives of a California-based development firm called Mekong Property LLC were in Mesa on Wednesday checking progress on the 100,000-square-foot Asian shopping center called Mekong Plaza.

The indoor mall at the southwest corner of Dobson Road and Main Street has been under construction since January 2007.

The center, designed with an imperial Chinese-style flair, will include restaurants, a food court, a 38,000-square-foot Asian grocery store, a dentist office, bakery, beauty salons and other stores. One of the mall’s features will be an 8-by-6-foot Buddha statue.

The site originally hosted a drive-in movie theater and then a Target store, which relocated in 2004 to Southern Avenue and Longmore, near Fiesta Mall.

Philip Ta, a partner in the company, said 70 percent of the development is leased and he’s hoping to open the center in early October.

Michael Wilson, a consultant on Mekong Plaza, said the Valley’s growing Asian population craves more shopping, dining and entertainment choices.

“Asians spend less time watching TV and more time shopping and entertaining each other,” he said. “They’re not couch potatoes.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Valley’s Asian population has grown 34 percent from 81,113 in 2002 to 108,728 in 2006. Those are encouraging numbers, Ta said.

“We also expect that not only the Asian community will benefit from this,” he said adding 20 percent to 30 percent of shoppers flocking to his two centers in California are not Asian.

“It’s going to draw across the board,” he said.

The center is the latest addition to a growing number of shopping areas catering to the Valley’s Asian community, including the 11-year-old Chinese Cultural Center at 44th Street and Loop 202 in Phoenix. A shopping center at Dobson and Warner roads in Chandler hosts Lee Lee’s Supermarket and other businesses geared to Asian shoppers.

Patrick Welch, a spokesman for the Chinese Cultural Center, said the center views Mekong as a competitor, but a welcome one.

“It gives exposure,” he said. “The more choices people have, the more they want to try different things.”

Ta — who came to the United States as a 13-year-old refugee from war-torn Vietnam — acknowledged that work on the center has been somewhat drawn out.

Without going into detail, he said plans for the site have evolved.

He also said the company put a painstaking amount of detail into Mekong Plaza’s appearance and ambience, from the Chinese-imported red roof tiles to a 48-foot stone mural of the Great Wall of China, which is being made in that country.

“It took a little bit longer than expected,” he said.

“But we’d rather have it done right.”