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City asks: Why arent more stores in Orchard Valley?
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The Bass Pro Shop, AMC Showplace Theatres and Red Robin restaurant located in Manteca’s Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley are all among the top performers of their respective chains.So why can’t Poag & McEwen fill vacant retail space at the 700,000-square-foot center where Bass Pro in October 2008 was the first store and had more than 5,000 people waiting for the doors to open?It’s a question Manteca’s elected leaders would like answered.And according to Councilman Steve DeBrum and city economic specialist Don Smail low-key discussions with three major players of the shopping center at Union Road and the 120 Bypass provided three different takes.Smail indicated that Steve Craig — the principal of Craig Reality that owns or manages outlet store centers throughout the West — Orchard Valley is “dying on the vine”. Poag & McEwen partnered with Craig Realty after the lifestyle center concept hit a brick wall with the start of the Great Recession. The goal was to use the nearly 3 million annual visitors to Bass Pro Shop that travel from as far away as 100 or more miles to create a complementary outlet mall in the in-line store space.So far that effort has yield only three outlets — Guess, Vans, and the Banana Republic.