Retail has gone full circle in Mesquite and nothing exemplifies that more than a prime 65-acre tract on the I-30 corridor where a sprawling 351,874-square-foot FedEx warehouse is nearing completion. 

The site originally housed the iconic Big Town Mall, which opened in 1959 as the first indoor, climate-controlled shopping center in the Southwest. Between 40 stores, a cafeteria, and town hall – along with adjacent movie theaters and bowling alley – Big Town’s brand for combining retail and entertainment put Mesquite on the map for attracting shoppers from around North and East Texas.

In the 1970s, Big Town’s luster began fading when bigger, shinier malls opened around the Dallas area, which included Town East Mall just a couple of miles away. By 2001, there was nothing big about Big Town anymore, so it closed its doors and demolished the once-famous facility five years later.

Though a handful of developers considered the vacant site for entertainment complexes or urban centers, the property became an eyesore over the years for I-30 travelers and commuters.

Retail didn’t seem a likely fit with the property because of the nearby brick and mortar dominance of the Town East retail and restaurant district. But the exploding wave of online shoppers makes the huge FedEx package delivery center a perfect fit with the old Big Town site.

Aside from taking retail full circle on the property, the FedEx facility is bringing 350 new jobs to Mesquite and the East Dallas quadrant and adding another corporate dynamic to the I-30 aesthetic. 

New Jersey-based Monmouth Real Estate Investment Corp. recently purchased the FedEx site in Mesquite for slightly over $50.6 million, and it will lease the facility to FedEx for a 15-year term.

In the Dallas market, the Mesquite deal represents the largest per-square-foot price paid for a single large-scale building this year.