New tenants are bringing New Leaf Plaza to 100% occupancy

At the start of 2022, the strip center on the south end of New Leaf Plaza at the southwest corner of 21st and Amidon was less than half full.

Now, it’s 100% leased “with some pretty awesome tenants,” said Builders Inc. broker Adam Clements, who said the center will be fully occupied by next year.

Clements said there had been some longtime vacancies.

“We took on the assignment.”

Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers opened there earlier this year.

Now Clements has three more leases: Wichita’s second Kung Fu Tea, which will open in November; a new Schoolbelles school uniform store, which recently moved from Carriage Parkway; and one of three new Dedicated Senior Medical Centers, which will open next year.

“The building needed a different type of exposure and more of a targeted marketing effort to bring people in and understand how interesting that intersection is,” Clements said.

He said what he’s been doing to attract tenants is “telling the story of the intersection.”

“Tell me one other intersection in Wichita, Kansas, that has a grocery store on three corners,” Clements said.

There’s a Walmart Neighborhood Market at New Leaf, Aldi on the northwest corner and Dillons on the northeast corner.

And actually, as a reader pointed out, there’s a fourth as well. El Rio Bravo Supermarket is in Twin Lakes on the southeast corner.

“There are unique characteristics to that intersection that maybe fly over people’s heads,” Clements said.

Milo Pham had thought she’d open her second Kung Fu Tea franchise further west, but she thinks the New Leaf site will please her customers from downtown and the west side who have been asking for a location closer to them.

“We’ve been listening to our customers’ feedback.”

Pham opened Wichita’s first Kung Fu Tea at 1625 S. Rock Road in 2018.

The business mainly sells milk teas along with coffee slushes and fruity drinks. There are also snacks such as flavored popcorn and macaroons.

Pham said she hopes to open the new Kung Fu Tea on Nov. 1, which is the anniversary of her first store.

“Hopefully we’ll get to celebrate both stores.”

Bruce Carroll, who owns Cleveland-based Schoolbelles, moved his store to New Leaf earlier this summer for a couple of reasons.

“I wanted to upgrade the quality of the store itself,” he said.

He inherited a store at Carriage Crossing near Central and Edgemoor from a former competitor.

“Our customers were used to that location . . . but they had their store set up in a different way than we do.”

Carroll said it was too costly to change the store, and he wanted to be in a newer, busier center as well.

“I studied where my business was located.”

He likes New Leaf and said it isn’t too far for anyone in the area to get to.

“Wichita’s a relatively easy city to get around.”

If Carroll had his way, he said his business would be online only.

“It’s very hard to justify the bricks and mortar 12 months a year,” he said. “We’re really only busy two months of the year. . . . Unfortunately for me, my customers are still demanding a location where they can go in, try it on and see if it fits properly.”

His mother started Schoolbelles more than 65 years ago.

Carroll said one day, he hopes to take it completely online.

“I could actually decrease prices if I didn’t have to carry these stores.”

The final new lease in the center is for the new senior medical facility, which is part of Miami-based ChenMed.

ChenMed is a “very mission-driven, faith-based company that is focused on helping the underserved,” Frank Clepper, who is regional vice president for business in Missouri, Tennessee and Kansas, told Have You Heard? earlier this year.

The focus is on in-need patients who are 65 and older, but Clepper said the clinics also will see some 55-and-older Medicare and Medicaid patients.

ChenMed spends $3.5 million on each clinic, each of which provides primary care services but also acts as something of a community center.

The first permanent clinic will open at 2402 E. 13th St., which is the northeast corner of 13th and Grove, later this year.

The second one will open at 961 S. Glendale, which is in the Parklane Shopping Center at the southeast corner of Lincoln and Oliver.

There’s also temporary space at 1125 N. Topeka.

Look for more information on all the new spaces closer to their openings.

Clements said there is nothing left on the market for lease at New Leaf.

“Everybody is doing great,” he said, which he added is “proof of the vibrancy of the intersection.”