KATHY HOOPER, LEFT, recently shops with her mother, Debby Schmelzle, and nephew Rhett McDaniel in Pine Ridge Plaza.

It’s convenient and the stores are good.

Those are the reasons shoppers give for perusing the aisles in stores at the Pine Ridge development on 31st and Iowa streets.

At any given time, the parking lot by the stores is full. But not so full a shopper can’t find a space.

Pine Ridge is home to a myriad of stores, including World Market, Old Navy, Michaels, Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl’s, Famous Footware, Jason’s Deli, Bath and Body Works and the International House of Pancakes.

“I think there was a demand to enter into the Lawrence market by some of these tenants,” said Jodi Belpedio with Rubenstein Real Estate in Shawnee Mission. Rubenstein developed the Pine Ridge area, which once was home to Kmart.

Square footage in buildings on Massachusetts Street couldn’t meet the demand the stores required, Belpedio said.

“And Iowa (Street) didn’t previously have the location to fill that need,” she said.

Selling points

THREE OF THE NEWEST additions to the Pine Ridge Plaza development were Michaels, T.J. Maxx and World Market.

Rubenstein Real Estate sold the Pine Ridge center last June to Chicago-based Inland Real Estate Group of Companies Inc. Inland now manages the facility.

It’s a seller’s marker, Belpedio explained.

“But we also felt like we had done our job,” she said. “We left that corridor in a better place than when we bought it, and that’s what we told the city we would do.”

Rubenstein purchased Pine Ridge in July 2002 from Malan Realty Investors Inc. for $13.85 million.

Just months after acquiring the property, Kmart – one of the largest tenants – closed as a result of financial difficulties for the national discount retail chain.

The loss of Kmart, however, didn’t impact Rubenstein Real Estate developing the site.

JASON'S DELI IS ONE of several new restaurants that have located in the Pine Ridge Plaza development, joining popular chain stores such as Bed Bath & Beyond, seen in the background at left.

The firm managed to find new tenants to take up residence in the old Kmart building and it was completed in just more than a year’s time.

“If you look at what we did, it took us about one year from the time Kmart vacated to fill that building,” Belpedio said. “That’s an incredibly quick turnaround. We also were very particular about who we put in that center.”

She said the company wanted to get a type of clientele that would complement stores already existing on the site, such as Kohl’s and Famous Footware.

“Doing that increases the value of what was already there,” Belpedio said.

OLD NAVY, THE CLOTHES STORE KNOWN more for the younger generation, occupies a storefront at Pine Ridge Plaza between Famous Footware and Kohl's.

The old Kmart store was filled with Bed Bath & Beyond, discount clothing store TJ Maxx, World Market and Michael’s. It generally could take three to four years to put together a lineup with those stores, Belpedio said.

Stores at the center keep their sales reporting close to the belt, she said.

“But you can see by visiting the stores that they have business,” Belpedio said. “I think they’re very happy.”

Traffic matters

More stores usually means an increase in traffic.

But congestion hasn’t been a problem around the area, Lawrence public works director Chuck Soules said.

KOHL'S AND FAMOUS FOOTWEAR are tenants at the Pine Ridge Plaza.

“As far as we’re aware the traffic is doing fine,” Soules said. “There’s not any congestion.”

The city public works department has received calls and complaints about the signals on traffic lights taking a long time to change, Soules said.

David Woosley, the city’s traffic engineer, said no traffic counts have been done in the area of 31st and Iowa streets since the redevelopment of Pine Ridge.

“But I think it’s working pretty well traffic-wise out there,” he said.

Woosley also commented on the calls the department receives on the long traffic signals. The signals have to be a little long in order to make sure the coordination of the traffic flows well, he said.