Friday, October 2, 2009
Atlanta Business Chronicle – by Doug Sams Staff Write
America_logoA Missouri-based pizza chain that is part-amusement park and part-smorgasbord is looking to come to Atlanta.
America’s Incredible Pizza Co.,
whose first store was launched in Springfield, Mo., in 2002, is in
early negotiations to put at least one of its giant restaurants in
suburban Atlanta.
Real estate powerhouse CB Richard Ellis Inc. is representing the company.
America’s Incredible Pizza
restaurants can be as large as 70,000 square feet, with Go-Kart tracks,
indoor golf and giant buffets filled with pizza, salads, pasta and
tacos.
Its target customer is 5 to 12 years old, though the company has been tweaking its concept lately to appeal to younger kids.
“If you take Dave & Buster’s, remove the alcohol and put in a
buffet format, then that’s who we are,” said Chris Brewer, vice
president of marketing, referring to the well-known American restaurant and entertainment chain.
America’s Incredible Pizza will also try to steal market share from competitors CiCi’s Pizza and Chuck E. Cheese’s.
There is nothing like America’s Incredible Pizza in the Atlanta market.
The chain has 18 U.S. restaurants and one in Mexico ranging from its
smallest in Victoria, Texas (30,000 square feet), to its largest in
Tulsa (68,000 square feet).
Any location in metro Atlanta “would be on the larger end of the scale,” Brewer said.
“We’re still in talks, so it’s early,” he said. “But, one of the
things is the number of families that Atlanta has. That’s certainly
drawing us.”
Another factor: The area’s abundance of vacant stores.
Metro Atlanta’s vacancy rate is 11.3 percent, or almost 28 million
square feet, the equivalent of 14 retail centers the size of the Mall
of Georgia, according to Colliers Spectrum Cauble Inc.
America’s Incredible Pizza targets existing retail space.
“In this environment, it’s easy to find space,” Brewer said. “We just moved into an old grocery store.”
The company has been looking for locations around metro Atlanta for about a year.
While there is plenty of space because of the downturn, one of the
hurdles preventing a new location in Atlanta is related to the poor
retail market.
America’s Incredible Pizza
wants at least $50 per square foot in tenant improvement allowances,
which landlords offer as incentives so that companies use less of their
own money to build out their space.
But, retail landlords are challenged to meet that demand because
vacancy is higher, rental incomes are falling and lending is still
tight.
CB Richard Ellis’ Rusty Kigelman is representing American’s Incredible Pizza.
“We’ve been pretty close to a deal at one location,” Kigelman said.
America’s Incredible Pizza
is focusing on the suburbs because of the higher concentration of
families and the abundance of vacant shopping center space, real estate
observers said.
“It’s a similar real estate play to what Steve & Barry’s did in
that it’s adaptive reuse of second-generation space,” said Abe Schear,
a partner with the law firm Arnall Golden Gregory LLP.
America’s Incredible Pizza
has restaurants in Indianapolis and Memphis, but Atlanta would mark its
largest metropolitan location. The company also wants to extend its
brand deeper into the Southeast.
Its most southern location is Louisiana.
Although it’s considering a smaller store format, a metro Atlanta
location would be closer to the look and feel of its Tulsa restaurant.
That location has indoor bumper cars, golf and a huge buffet.
America’s Incredible Pizza is also considering more locations with indoor movie theaters.
Reach Sams at dsams@bizjournals.com.
