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Shops At Wiregrass Ready For Action

Tribune photo by CHRISTINE DELESSIO

Greg Lenners, general manager of the Shops at Wiregrass, will guide the shopping center through its grand opening.

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By KEVIN WIATROWSKI

kwiatrowski@tampatrib.com

Published: October 30, 2008

WESLEY CHAPEL - With opening day approaching for The Shops at Wiregrass, mall manager Greg Lenners prepared to take one more spin through the new shopping center.

But first there was a more personal matter to attend to. Where should workers hang the picture of the Simi Valley Town Center, his previous posting in California?

The corridor leading to Lenners' office at the back of The Shops at Wiregrass is lined with large portraits for similar properties across the country owned by Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises.

That catalog of malls encapsulates much of Lenners' career in retail.

For the past decade, Lenners, 42, has worked his way up Forest City's management ladder to become the head of Wiregrass, the company's newest mall, which opens to the public at 10 a.m. today at State Road 56 and Bruce B. Downs Boulevard.

Not bad for a former Air Force brat from Anchorage, Alaska, who began his career in retail more than a decade ago managing sales of high-end luggage in Las Vegas.

There, Lenners worked for El Portal (pronounced "El PorTAHL," he noted) in the Venetian casino in Las Vegas. During the next few years, Lenners managed malls large and small in the Las Vegas area before moving to southern California.

In 2005, Lenners was given the reins of the Simi Valley Town Center, another open-air mall in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles. At 612,000 square feet, that mall is about three-quarters the size of Wiregrass.

Wiregrass is Lenners' third posting as general manager. It's also the second time he has led the final push toward opening day.

Those previous postings made Lenners a natural pick to run Wiregrass, said Tom Gilkeson, Forest City's vice president of operations.

"He has a 'can do' attitude that allows him to handle the pressure and stress associated with a new center," Gilkeson said. "Based on the success of these openings and the success of the properties we felt he is a great fit for the Shops at Wiregrass."

Lenners moved his family to the Meadow Pointe community this summer. His wife, Stacie, will be a stay-at-home mom for the first time while their son, 14-year-old Zachary, attends Wiregrass Ranch High School.

A couple of weeks before opening day, Lenners led a visitor on a golf-cart tour of the nearly finished mall.

Having opened six malls as part of Forest City's opening-day strike team, Lenners was the calm center amid the hustle and bustle surrounding him. The mall should open with 75 percent of its stores ready, he said as crews hung awnings and laid pavers.

Lenners acknowledged managing an open-air mall in Florida - where torrential rainfall is possible half the year - could be different from his years in arid southern California.

"There are disadvantages because of the weather," he said. "But it's the experience that will bring people in."

As for that portrait of the Simi Valley Town Center, it's hanging directly across from Lenners' desk so he can remember where he came from.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201.

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