Speculation swirls over which stores will open in new shopping center

The rumor mill has been working overtime in Northeast El Paso. Word is that a popular retailer is looking to open a store in a new shopping center.

The shopping center is on the southeast corner of McCombs Street and Rick Husband Drive. The ground has been leveled and the parking lot lighting has been installed, but construction hasn’t begun.

That isn’t keeping shoppers at the North Hills Shopping Center a few miles away from forming their own ideas of who the main tenant will be.

“Somebody said — I’m only going by what they said, that’s they were going to put a Target there,” Belk Reyes told ABC-7 as she unloaded her Walmart shopping cart.
Melissa Barnett had heard the same rumor. “(I heard) that it was going … over by the McDonald’s over there. On McCombs,” she said, pointing in the direction of the new development.

Marcia Fulton hadn’t heard the rumor, she told ABC-7, “But I would like to see it.”

There are already signs posted along the sidewalk framing the development alongside McCombs, proclaiming which shops and restaurants are expected to open there. The two signs say Carl’s Jr. and Taco Bell are coming soon. But there is not a sign for Target.

That’s because Target isn’t opening a new store there.

Kristy Welker, the retailer’s spokeswoman told ABC-7 in a phone conversation, “There aren’t plans for a new store at this time in that area … (but Target’s ) real estate team continually looks for new store locations.”

The shoppers with visions of a new shopping option in Northeast were visibly disappointed.

“I wish there was one coming,” Barnett said with a wistful smile.

“See, you guys shouldn’t have said nothing. They jinxed it,” Belk said, shaking her head. But then she lightened up her mood. “Hey. Tell them we need an Olive Garden too. And a Red Lobster at that, too.”

But the disappointment was mixed with a hope that more options are on the horizon.

“They need to look at what’s happening in these stores,” said Fulton, gesturing to the storefronts of Walmart, Marshalls, Ross and Petco, among others in the North Hills Shopping Center. “This is not hit-and-miss. You build it and they will come.”

Property owner MIMCO Inc. told ABC-7 it doesn’t have a date for the groundbreaking and that it is still working on securing an anchor store for the shopping center on McCombs.