$100M Milpitas Mall: 100% Asian-Themed, Mom and Pop Stores

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There's a new mall in the works at McCarthy Ranch in Milpitas and developers say it will be all Asian all the time. The San Jose Mercury News reports that the $100 million project includes a 260,000-square-foot retail center in an enclosed complex, a 240-room hotel, and an underground parking garage. But in an unexpected twist for a development of this magnitude, it won't have a single corporate owner. Instead, merchants will buy or lease their individual space similar to the residential ownership model.

"There will be no large stores in the mall," explained Jim Kessler, a development adviser for Canada-based Torgan Group, the owner of the McCarthy Ranch retail complex. "It is really geared toward entrepreneurs and small business people." Construction for the Pacific Mall Silicon Valley is slated to begin in spring 2015 (with the opening scheduled for 2017), but the hope that this themed mall will be a major tourist draw (in addition to tapping the local Asian community) is already mounting. Critics are weighing in that the area's market may be too saturated for the mall to succeed. But with the new 49ers Levi's stadium less than 5 miles down the road, this new complex, zany as it sounds, just might work.
· Milpitas: Developers plan $100M Asian-themed mall [The San Jose Mercury News]
· Torgan Group [Official Site]