THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, January 1, 1997            TAG: 9701010428
SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY STEPHANIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER 
                                            LENGTH:   48 lines

RETAIL GROWTH BOOMING IN HAMPTON ROADS FIVE SHOPPING CENTERS BUILD IN '95, AND AT LEAST FOUR OPENED IN '96

Hampton Roads continues to attract more shopping-center development.

Five centers with a construction contract value of $52.1 million were built in 1995, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, an industry organization in New York.

Four other significant retail centers were added in 1996.

The local contracts' amount in 1995 was higher than those spent in other regions of the state, including the Richmond-Petersburg area, which had five new centers built at $19 million, the council said.

Much of the retail growth in Hampton Roads has involved so-called ``big-box'' stores like Super Kmart and Circuit City, and has been centered in Chesapeake's booming Greenbrier community, Virginia Beach and on the Peninsula.

What those retailers see in Hampton Roads is a growing economy no longer threatened by defense consolidation, said Hunter Hogan, a real estate consultant in Virginia Beach.

``We've just done better than anyone else with the military cutbacks,'' Hogan said. ``We're gaining instead of losing.''

Hogan and other real estate officials question whether there's enough growth in the local economy to feed all of the giant retailers moving into the region.

``They're overbuilding,'' he said. ``You can't build all these Wal-Marts, Super Kmarts and Targets. Somebody's going to take a beating before it's all over.''

The International Council of Shopping Centers did not list the local shopping centers, but a survey by Harvey Lindsay Commercial Real Estate in Norfolk also counted five centers opening in 1995. They were Governors Green in Williamsburg, Kecoughtan Road center in Hampton, Victory Center in York County, and Sandbridge Shopping Center and Marina Shores Shoppes in Virginia Beach.

The growth continued in 1996. At least four shopping centers opened in 1996, including Greenbrier Market Center in Chesapeake, Mast Farm Kmart Center in Virginia Beach and Yoder Farm Plaza in Newport News, according to the Harvey Lindsay survey. Another new entry was the Shoppes at Greenbrier in Chesapeake.

``It's going to be interesting to see how we're absorbing the growth in the next several years,'' said Bob King, executive vice president of Harvey Lindsay.

KEYWORDS: RETAIL SALES SHOPPING CENTERS ECONOMY