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It's the parade of fast-food chains, clothiers and specialty retailers following those business icons that transforms sleepy little towns into commercial centers. The Medford-Ashland market has grown nearly 45 percent in the past two decades and the area has emerged as the commercial hub of a region loosely defined by the reach of local television signals, hospital services and driving distance to the regional Rogue Valley Mall. In broad terms, that stretches from the coast to Lakeview and from Mount Shasta City, Calif., to Roseburg. Retailers, who once thought Medford too remote to establish their presence in Southern Oregon, now eye the area more intently. Such national tenants are widely sought to fill strip malls and power centers. When the Rogue Valley Mall opened nearly 20 years ago, its tenants were as likely to be local merchants escaping a dying downtown as they were national tenants. Advertisement Today, the overwhelming majority of tenants are national companies and the downtown has been rejuvenated by local merchants. In the interim, Medford Center has reinvented itself to house a growing number of new tenants, several power shopping centers have cropped up on Biddle Road, Crater Lake Highway has turned into a commercial haven, Albertsons has anchored shopping centers on both sides of Medford and Central Point, strip centers have sprouted up from Eagle Point to Ashland, most touting national tenants. "Each incremental change in a community's size introduces additional tenants," says commercial real estate broker Tom Harrison of Oregon Opportunities. "We sort of hit everybody's radar in the mid-to-late 1990s. Certainly, the power centers are driven by national tenants. I don't think it's an attempt to snub the local market, but just a change in the mix." While Jackson County's population has outstripped the national average, growth-driven retailers are looking for new markets. "There are two ways for a business to grow," says marketing consultant Mark Dennett. "Either increase your market share where you are at and take business from someone else or expand into new markets and add new products. When you take market share away from someone, you buy it with lower prices or hire more people and provide more service to improve your share." As the Costcos, Lowe's and Wal-Marts of the world found their way to the Rogue Valley, they blazed a trail for smaller companies to follow. "They originally focused on the top 50 markets and pretty much had that done by 2000," Dennett says. "Now they're looking at the top 100 markets. We're in that next wave. That's why we are seeing so many more retailers." He says smaller nationals don't have the advertising or investment muscle to steal market share, so they tend to grow by moving on to a new town where they can be the new business on the block. When it comes to financing shopping centers, lenders love to see developers with national tenants lined up. "A national tenant makes a building more financeable and more saleable on the secondary market," Harrison says. "Someone with a national credit rating and multi-state operations is considered a better credit risk. That usually means publicly traded companies with large equity." Likewise, developers don't often build a shopping center without knowing who will fill key spaces. "You wouldn't go in and develop a large piece of commercial property if you didn't have some users in advance," says Chris Galpin, who has developed several major commercial and residential projects throughout Southern Oregon. "You want letters of intent. You need to know who's in the marketplace and who's looking around." If Safeway is looking at an area, he says, it's going to track the moves of Albertsons and Ray's. "If an Albertsons comes in, you'll almost automatically see a Blockbuster Video and Super Cuts," Galpin says. "But a lot of times a strip mall doesn't need a national if it's neighborhood zoned and near a larger development." There are only so many major markets in the U.S. and foreign markets can be tough to crack, as witnessed by Wal-Mart's recent sale of its German stores. For many retailers, that means ferreting out growing communities away from the beaten path. "Many of them have already saturated the bigger markets and there is nowhere else to expand, so they start looking into the mid-markets," says Rogue Valley Mall general manager Jeff Barber. "One of the things this area has going for it is that it's right in the middle of the Portland-Seattle and Sacramento areas. Once we started getting a few national big names, others followed." Then there is the familiar pattern where Burger King sets up shop across the street from McDonald's and Wendy's is right around the corner. Home Depot has diligently sought to enter the market, preferably close to Lowe's. Even though the Atlanta-based home improvement giant is building on North Phoenix Road, it still covets a north Medford location near its competitor and considers this area worthy of two stores. Although national tenants constantly survey the area, a variety of factors slow their arrival. That can range from lease terms and expansion patterns to the availability of land and how accommodating a company finds the local city hall. "Retailers are set up by regions," Barber says. "I've always tried to convince certain retailers that if Redding is in their region and they're building out to Redding, they ought to include us, because we're just up the road. They tell me 'When we're ready to hit Oregon, we'll come see you.' " While signing tenants for McAndrews Marketplace, Chris Chamberlain learned that Medford is down the pipeline in the mind of many nationals looking for new territory. "Companies from the East want to establish themselves in places with the best demographics first when they come to Oregon, so naturally they will go to Portland and work their way down," says Chamberlain, who recently joined Coldwell Banker Commercial Pro West Real Estate. "Not all of them do that, but they often work down through Salem and Eugene." Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 776-4463 or at [email protected] PHOENIX — The Shoppes at Exit 24 fly in the face of a trend toward more and more national tenants in local shopping centers. The shopping center wedged between Bear Creek and Interstate 5's southbound lanes started off as Pear Tree Factory Stores in 1993 and later became Pacific Northwest Marketplace and Outlet Mall. Today, only three outlet-type stores remain. Local entrepreneur merchants and professionals occupy 16 out of the 19 leased units. "We would love to have national tenants," says operations director Derek DeBoer. "But you are not talking a national tenant into coming to your spot unless they're interested. I've talked to some of them until I'm blue in the face." DeBoer thinks outsiders fail to see Phoenix as the mid-point between Medford and Ashland, giving it a lot of exposure to local commuters. "Someone in the Kenneth Cole outlet office in New York will pull up their demographics on a computer screen and think Medford would look a lot more attractive than Phoenix," DeBoer says. "They can't see past our location to the common sense part being halfway between Medford and Ashland." On the flip side, he says, customers coming to the handful of outlet stores are pleasantly surprised to see what the local merchants offer. With Home Depot set to open around Thanksgiving, national tenants are poised to go into the surrounding area. Si Casa Flores is scheduled to open a restaurant in September, giving the center a dinner-hour option. Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2006 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback online casinos news Home Security Systems Online Casino Reviews Trunks, Footlocker Fundraisers UK Homeowner Loans Casinos Canada Cord Blood Banking Discount Hotel Reservations Texas Electric Choice Compare Electric rates in Texas Windermere Van Vleet Men's Clothing Debt Help New Hampshire Primary Advertisements Advertisement