The Roanoker March/April 2017 - 56

"We don't have an arena proposed for Tanglewood,
but certainly a teardown in the future is a possibility
among other things," Abernathy says. "The right mix
on an older mall brings traffic back. Often it becomes
entertainment-oriented, or it could be office, school,
medical, restaurants-whatever brings the traffic back
to the location. It could be turning it inside out a little
bit, to get a little more green area. We can keep portions
of the inside or not. It's really what the market dictates."
Roanoke County stands to give Tanglewood's new
owner a helping hand, too, as the county government
is conducting an urban development study on the area
where 419 and 220 meet. As part of its comprehensive
plan, the county is considering changes to improve traffic flow and increase commercial density to make the
area more of a town center and boost prosperity (and
thus tax revenue).
That should give Blackwater more flexibility with
its plans for Tanglewood, which gives the mall a better
chance for a new life.

TOWERS SHOPPING CENTER - A STUDY IN
EVOLUTION
If Tanglewood needs inspiration, it need only look down
Colonial Avenue to see Towers Shopping Center.
Opening just a year after Crossroads, Towers is Roanoke's oldest mall that's still functioning as a mall. Unlike its larger counterparts, its tenant mix has consisted
largely of homegrown shops such as the A Little Bit
Hippy, Ram's Head Book Shop and the Roanoke Coin
Exchange. Over the years, its fortunes have ebbed and
flowed, including hard times just a decade ago.
"When we first began working on that particular
property, it had some vacancy issues," says Nielsen, who
held the listing on the property at Cushman & Wakefield/Thalhimer during the late '00s. "One thing you
never like to see is large blocks of vacancy."
56 | MARCH/APRIL 2017

Working out of that funk took several years and a
piece-by-piece process of attracting businesses.
"The initial catalyst occurred when we were able to bring
in Planet Fitness on that lower level," Nielsen says. "That
fitness center was the catalyst because it was able to bring
in additional consumers and additional traffic that weren't
necessarily visiting that shopping center previously."
One of Towers' biggest assets is its location: It's just
off I-581/U.S. 220, convenient to Old Southwest, South
Roanoke and southwest Roanoke County. It's built success largely through tenants that serve daily-use needs
of the residents in those neighborhoods: Kroger, Fresh
Market, Virginia ABC and PetCo. Roanoke's first Chipotle restaurant opened in 2011 in a Towers outparcel
and remains a popular destination today. These anchors
complement a variety of homegrown shops and restaurants that uphold Towers' long tradition of working with
local business owners.
"We believe the strength of our shopping centers is
going to come from those local shops, those mom-andpops," says Jarnell Bonds, vice president of marketing for
Rappaport, which currently owns Towers. "We do have
national retailers but the majority you'll see are local.
We like to help them evolve and develop their space as
they meet their market more."
A case in point would be Present Thyme, which sells
furniture, antiques and other home decor. Since Present
Thyme opened at Towers in 1995, it's occupied several
different spaces within the mall, eventually growing large
enough to merit its own building.
Rappaport also spent $2 million to improve the mall's
lighting, replace escalators with an elevator and new
staircase, add free WiFi service and make the building
ADA-compliant.
"You go through the life of these properties and there are
going to be those ebbs and flows," says Nielsen. "Those ebbs
and flows can be created by bigger economic trends, or it
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