You can read about it on our Lakewood/East Dallas news site: Trader Joe’s has selected the old Arcadia Theater location on Lower Greenville for its first Dallas store. A Trader Joe’s spokesperson was quoted in the DMN (behind the paywall) as saying about the new location, expected to open in late 2012: “Lower Greenville is a wonderful neighborhood and has a lot of foodies.” By way of location, the Trader Joe’s will be just south of the former Whole Foods/Blockbuster location on Greenville and on the opposite side of the street.

What does this mean for the Lake Highlands Town Center?

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Well, the Trader Joe’s on Lower Greenville will be about 15,000 square feet and include both groceries and wine. By way of comparison, the size of the LHTC grocer — at least the size in some of the documents filed with HUD by the city to obtain a loan for a LHTC parking garage — was projected to be about 57,000 square feet, clearly much larger than Trader Joe’s typical footprint.

As we’ve talked about here several times during the past year, Trader Joe’s was never a likely candidate for the LHTC, at least in the site’s first iteration of tenants, since it’s too small to anchor the huge site and because it typically locates in more filled-in urban locations — something that, for better or worse, the LHTC is not. For additional background about how national retailers select their sites, check out our January 2011 cover story that discussed the selection process with a number of national chains, including Trader Joe’s, H&M and In-N-Out — all of whom have announced or opened stores here in 2011.

You can check out the lively discussion about a prospective LHTC grocer, HUD loan, parking garage and more elsewhere here on our Lake Highlands news site.