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Big retail plans for key Tempe intersection
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IN USE: The vacant Mervyns store at Southern Avenue and Rural Road in Tempe is serving as the staging ground for Marketside, a Wal-Mart grocery store concept.
Jennifer Grimes, Tribune
Big plans are afoot for a major corner in Tempe that’s become a near-dead zone for commercial activity in recent months.
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The northwest corner of Rural Road and Southern Avenue was supposed to be buzzing with construction work by now. However, plans to convert an old Mervyns department store building into a Wal-Mart Supercenter were delayed after the giant retailer decided to use the facilities as a temporary staging ground for its newest grocery store concept — Marketside — which the company plans to unveil to the public on Oct. 4.
Delia Garcia, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said the Mervyns building, which at 80,000 square feet dominates the corner, became “the home base” for Marketside employee recruiting, training and administrative operations shortly after Mervyns’ lease expired in May.
“We were using that facility as sort of the corporate headquarters for our Marketside effort,” she said. “So we’re looking at next summer for opening of (the) Supercenter.”
Currently, the only other businesses operating on the corner are a JPMorgan Chase (formerly Washington Mutual) branch, Wireless Toyz, a Geico insurance office and a 99 Cents Only store.
Meanwhile, a dirt lot next door, which has sat idle in landlocked Tempe for decades, may finally host ground-floor stores with residential units above. Southern Plaza, which will occupy a 4.3-acre vacant lot directly west of Wal-Mart, is scheduled to break ground in late 2009, and open — hopefully — around the same time the real estate market and economy are rebounding, said Justin Gubler, project manager.
A conceptual rendering from Southern Plaza’s developer — Scottsdale-based Diversified Partners — shows a building with ground-floor stores and four floors of condos or apartments above the stores.
However, that design will most likely change dramatically as plans evolve, Gubler said.
The project has no financing and hasn’t started the city’s approval process.
“We’ve got a long way to go,” he said.
It’s unclear how long the two parcels that make up the site have sat unused.
“I believe that’s been empty now for well over 30 years, at least,” Gubler said.
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