Stony Point Fashion Park and Short Pump Town Center are five years old this month. In the battle for market share between the two pedestrian malls, Short Pump has emerged as the clear winner.

"The great success story is Short Pump. It's gone up and up," Brian Glass, senior vice president of retail brokerage for Grubb & Ellis/Harrison & Bates Inc. tells Louis Llovio in Metro Business today. Stony Point is "the weaker center," he said. Its main success story has been its four high-traffic restaurants – which Glass calls "destinations" -- not its high-end retail stores like Louis Vuitton or Saks Fifth Avenue.

While Short Pump has a more modest retail mix, it is set amidst a much larger retail destination, and its proximity to Interstates 64 and 295 allows it to draw from a larger market area than Stony Point, located on the Chippenham Parkway. Short Pump also has a better rounded selection of stores that appeals to the average shopper, observes Bill Baxter, president of the area's Retail Merchants Association.

Moreover, Stony Point has had to contend with factors beyond its control. Several national chains that rent space there have closed stores or gone out of business, including Sharper Image, Mikasa, Storehouse Furniture and April Cornell.

An unofficial count at Stoney Point late last month found 17 of the center's 89 spaces vacant, about 19 percent, writes Llovio. A similar count at Short Pump Town Center, with 140 spaces, found eight vacant locations, or 5.7 percent. That compares to mall vacancies of about eight percent across the U.S. in June, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers said. 

Despite the economic slowdown, the Richmond area is slated to add massive amounts of retail space -- 3.8 million square feet -- by the first half of next year. That compares to 1.9 million square feet for the two malls combined. Construction includes 420,000 square feet at West Broad Village and 1.3 million at Watkins Centre.