(May 18, 2015 – ArkansasMatters.com) PALM BEACH, FL – Shoppers, get your wallets ready.
And job searchers, brush up on your interview skills because in five months the Outlets at Little Rock will be opening.
“Lots of saving. Lots of community events. It brings tourists into the county. Economic development,” says Pam Rada, Marketing Director of Palm Beach Outlets.
But many Arkansans are curious, what will the new outdoor mall bring? So Hilary Hunt went all the way to Palm Beach, Florida where New England Development’s first outlet mall is located.
The outdoor shopping paradise is the inspiration for the one we will find off of I-30.
“It’s new. It’s conveniently located and it just has all the great stores,” says shopper Gotten Martel.
Here at the Palm Beach Outlets, they have around 140 stores. Now according to New England Development we are expecting 75 stores, and those 75 stores mean lots of new hires.
“We created over 2,000 jobs just with the stores alone in this project. There was construction jobs ahead of time then over 2,000 jobs from the tenants themselves,” says Rada.
As for the Outlets of Little Rock they estimate around 1,000 jobs, most of those part time. But Palm Beach Store Manager Rita Gatta says her employees take advantage of.
“I think a lot of the girls that work with me also have other part time jobs in the mall so they come to one location and they may have two jobs that make up a full time job,” says Gatta.
At this point I know what you are thinking, what stores are coming here?
Let me break it down. In Palm Beach there are 140 stores, 39 percent of those are men’s and women’s apparel, 21 percent shoes, nine percent children’s, eight percent food, and the remaining 23 percent are things like jewelry, health and beauty.
As for Little Rock, 18 stores have applied for building permits so far.
16 percent of those are men’s and women’s apparel, four percent children’s, three percent shoes, two percent jewelry and accessory, and 76 percent still remain unknown.
Palm Beach shoppers were just as anxious as we now are when they waited to know what stores their mall would have.
“It was exciting, people couldn’t wait to get their hands on the stores that were coming they wanted to know what it was going to look like, what it was going to feel like,” says Rada.
But for now the anticipation will continue to build as we wait for the construction crews to transform this into a shopper’s paradise.
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