I began the hunt at the Figarden Loop space, adjacent to the Save Mart I shopped at when I lived at Dad’s place. This is pretty distant from freeway access– just down the street from where Monte and Jill live. [For locating on google, use 6033 Figarden Drive.] In Realtorspeak, it’s Figarden New Town.
I began with slots 17 and 18 at the right end of the strip mall as you face it from the street. For spotting, they’re between Nee Nee’s Ices and Golden Bread Co.
Internally, the spots are unfinished and don’t seem to have bathrooms built in. First the storefront for space 18, then shots of the interior.
Then I walked down to the open space at the other end of the strip, 6033 Figarden Dr. The interior doesn’t look that big, probably because of the office notched in the corner.
A few doors down from that is 6023. It’s currently chopped up, with a service counter and wall stretching across the whole front of the store. It’d take a lot of refiguring/demolition. I shot the right, left, and across the front as best I could.
From there, I was going to leave, but found that two spaces are available in a detached pod at the front of the space. The windows were covered with black plastic preventing me from looking in. One of the spaces was a former Starbucks. [They are 6095 Figarden and Suite 100.]
From there, I drove on to the next spot near Shaw and Marks [3265 W. Shaw] Unfortunately, pictured space in the listing was now an Aaron furniture (the 7500 sq ft) and storage for Aaron’s (the 1500), with windows papered over. I found another space available in the same shopping center: Suite 108, between a large empty suite (325) and Chuck E. Cheese. [Google 3131 West Shaw Avenue, Fresno, CA? to be close.] It looked nice and open, not too too big. From the street the store is behind Sizzlers, and there doesn’t look to be space on the existing monument sign.
From there I hit the SE corner of Shaw and First, Ash Tree Square. I couldn’t find most of their spaces other than the huge former Longs [the 15,817 SF]– I wonder if the others already filled in. (I walked the whole parking lot.) I did find one smaller space– probably the 1300 SF space, formerly Kashefi’s Delicatessen.
On the way to the First and Shaw, I passed the SE corner of Shaw and Maroa. Initially promising [good signage to rear parking, etc.], I don’t think either space will work well. 377 W Shaw is pretty chopped up and not attractive– though maybe if we tour inside it’ll be more attractive or we’ll see more potential.
(A good thing about this one is that it’s right next to the breezeway feeding from the rear parking to the front entries.)
385 was the next. It’s right next door to Scissor Hands. It’s actually a pretty good space, but the parking it shares w/ Scissor Hands is pretty limited– Scissor Hands alone is filling more than half of the parking. It shares the same rear parking as 377, but getting from the parking to the storefront requires looping the whole building. There’s no rear door [not even for loading], and getting to the store via the breezeway requires looping around the wig store building that sticks out. 385 has a good store layout, though the floors are a mess.
