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The factory outlet shopping center, a relative newcomer in the New Orleans market, has had mixed success in the local area.
Slidell Factory Outlet Stores, a linear landmark for five years off Interstate 10 east of New Orleans, was taken back by its lender last summer. The outdoor mall remains open at Highway 433 (Old Spanish Trail) and I-10.
The center, which has an even younger competitor just off I-10 near Gonzales, reverted to Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. of Milwaukee, the company which financed it, last July.
The original developer of the Slidell center, MRO of Huntsville, Ala., opened the 254,000-square-foot outlet mall in 1989, says spokeswoman Amy Smith.
Slidell Factory "did extremely well for the first year and a half," says Smith, director of marketing for Company Stores Development Corp. The firm, near Nashville, Tenn., manages the Slidell promenade for Northwestern.
"The first two phases were 95-percent occupied, but then it went downhill with the third phase," Smith says. As leasing slowed down, "the developer just stopped putting money into it," she adds.
Slidell Factory currently has 38 tenants. Smith says her firm is sprucing up the property, making it more noticeable, launching new marketing efforts and recruiting new tenants to increase the 65-percent occupancy rate.
"It's still a pretty successful outlet," Smith says. "We wouldn't have become involved in it if we didn't think it had a lot of potential."
Factory outlet shopping centers spread rapidly through the U.S. in the 1980s, largely based on their reputation of stocking quality, prestigious merchandise at bargain prices.
The new retailing breed brings together stores owned by manufacturers that need to clear out overstocked, dated or otherwise burdensome inventories, or that just find it a...