The table and chairs in Audrey Mondet's Argentina Polo & Leather store in Plaza Colonial are made from Argentine mesquite.

Photos by A.E. Araiza / Arizona Daily Star

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Does anybody really need a $200 glass octopus?

That question was on Lesley Warner's mind as she strolled the upper level of La Encantada on a recent afternoon amid the sounds of fountains and piped-in music. The UA sophomore had been to a gift shop and the Coach store, but found prices amusingly high.

"It's overpriced for me," said Warner, taking a break from her nonshopping trip. "But it's nice to have an outdoor mall."

Pricey as it may be, commercial and retail development continues to burgeon at the intersection of North Campbell Avenue and East Skyline Drive, with the opening of Plaza Colonial, a four-building, mixed-use specialty center, on the southwest corner, and the coming completion of an Embassy Suites Hotel near the southeast corner.

The southeast corner of the intersection is occupied by the Paloma Village Center, while El Cortijo Art Annex sits on the northeast corner.

Shopping there may not be for everyone, but business owners are wagering that enough high-end buying power from Foothills residents, second-home owners and destination-resort travelers will make the area, if not the next Scottsdale, a profitable, high-end niche market.

"People don't realize how many people have second homes in Tucson," said Craig Finfrock, owner of Commercial Retail Advisors. With several resorts nearby, the Campbell/Skyline intersection puts stores at the center of a market where some shoppers have "megabucks," Finfrock said.

"A lot of new money"

"These people spend 10,000 bucks without blinking an eye," Finfrock said of the area's wealthier part-time residents.

Audrey Mondet is co-owner, with her husband, of Argentina Polo & Leather, a hand-crafted-furniture store that also designs wine cellars. Hoping to lure some of Tucson's big spenders to their business, the couple opened a second Tucson store at the new Plaza Colonial in mid-February. Mondet estimated that 80 percent of their clients are second-home owners.

"This has become kind of the shopping destination for something different," said Mondet, whose store has benefited from its spot next to the popular new tapas-style restaurant Vintabla, which opened in January. "It also seems like there's a lot of new money coming into Tucson," Mondet said.

Plaza Colonial also includes Radiance Medspa, which offers Botox and facial peels; the Medicine Man Gallery, where Southwestern art can cost tens of thousands of dollars; and other offices, clothing boutiques and businesses.

Paucity of "foot traffic"

But not all businesses have flourished in this area, and a weekday or weeknight stroll past smaller retailers at La Encantada sometimes reveals nearly empty stores and a paucity of that magic ingredient for retail success, "foot traffic" — the normal eddy and flow of shoppers and mall-cruisers who will be drawn to a smaller store on their way to or from a larger one.

In February, locally owned Performance Footwear chose to leave La Encantada and expand elsewhere when its three-year lease was up. Jennifer Gibson, a Performance Footwear manager at La Encantada now working at the store's Williams Centre location on East Broadway near Craycroft Road, cited a lack of foot traffic as one reason for the move. Her sales representatives at La Encantada had "a lot of downtime," she said.

"La Encantada is a very boutique-y shopping center. People don't go there to just cruise the mall," Gibson said. "It hasn't grown to the potential that I think was needed for us to sign on for another term. It hasn't reached the level of what you would consider a typical mall."

If so, one explanation may date back to Westcor's downsizing of the La Encantada project in 2000 and 2001, when the company's plans to lure in "anchor" retailer Nordstrom was scuttled by a neighborhood group worried about the project's size.

A settlement reached between Pima County, Westcor and local residents kept Nordstrom out and reduced the planned size of La Encantada by more than 100,000 square feet, according to Mitch Stallard, vice president of development for Westcor, which owns La Encantada.

Nancy McClure, first vice-president at CB Richard Ellis, questioned whether La Encantada today can draw the foot traffic smaller retailers need.

"Unfortunately, when they took it through and the neighborhood decided to downsize it, it didn't reach its potential," McClure said.

Area draws new businesses

Still, new businesses keep coming to the intersection. Across the street at Plaza Colonial, a New York-style deli will move in soon, and a gallery is in negotiation to sign that center's final remaining lease, according to John Yarborough of Romano Real Estate.

Businesses in the area will also likely benefit from the planned June opening of the Embassy Suites Tucson-Paloma Village. The 120-suite hotel with meeting spaces and flat-screen TVs in every room will offer an alternative to nearby luxury resorts — a low end of the high-end tourist market.

Linda Shalit, marketing manager for La Encantada, cited eight new businesses opening over an eight-month period at La Encantada, including two new restaurants planned for the center of the complex — additions she said will draw more foot traffic. And Shalit emphasized both luxury and "more affordable" stores at La Encantada — such as specialty stationery store Papyrus, which opened in January. Asked about the volume of customers, Papyrus store manager Isabel De La Torre reported good business and steady foot traffic during the day's middle hours .

But the question remains: Would a deluge of shoppers change the rarified air and scare away the high-end, "megabucks" clientele La Encantada courts?

"We love it — the architecture, and the type of stores," said Tony Nazaroff, walking with his family through the sunlit upper level of La Encantada on a recent afternoon. Added his wife, Anne, "It doesn't seem to be a teen hangout. And it would be nice if they kept it that way."