Staff Photo: Bruce Felps Angela Sopha, general manager of Juice It Up Dallas, and Melissa Aills, Juice It Up director of Texas operations, offer a toast to the continued development of Kingsley Square.

The progress made on the renovation of Kingsley Square Shopping Center has area residents watching developments throughout Lake Highlands for signs of revitalization. Locals hope that the rapidly filling center could indicate a move toward similar commercial and residential improvements in other sections of the community.

Bill Blaydes, who represents the Lake Highlands area as Dallas City Council District 9, said the Kingsley Square overhaul was the first step in a series of expected redevelopments.

“It is absolutely the start to what I expect to see all the way up and down Skillman [Street],” he said. “It is the development that will move other developments directly across the street and to the south.”

The center retained locally owned Mi Cocina Mexican food restaurant, and another local dining establishment, Picasso’s Pizza and Grill, plans to relocate there from its original location north of Interstate 635 early next month.

Kingsley Center also attracted a national company, LA Fitness, which is owned by a corporation based in New York. The fitness center is expected to open by Nov. 1, according to Ray Washburne, the president and chief operating officer of Charter Holdings, the commercial real estate firm that bought Kingsley Square about two years ago.

Juice It Up, a fruit drink company founded in California, opened its only Texas location at Kingsley Square, which prompted some local residents to see a continued pattern of revitalization.

“Juice It Up opening in the area, I think, shows we’re on the upswing,” Lake Highlands resident and Wallace Elementary School PTA President Michelle Dishman said. “I think Juice It Up had a ton of confidence in Lake Highlands because of its market research.”

Melissa Aills, the Juice It Up director of Texas operations and a Lake Highlands resident, said the Kingsley Square location is only one of five outlets owned and operated by the corporation. The other 120 locations are franchises. Corporate management, she said, watches the store’s performance and uses it as a gauge to measure other Texas locations.

She declined to reveal monetary or percentage comparisons to other company-owned stores, but said the Lake Highlands location so far had exceeded projections.

Aills moved to Lake Highlands about five years ago. She said she saw the economic advances made in the area and wanted the company to share in and contribute to the growth.

“This location is more near and dear to me because I live in Lake Highlands and, probably a little selfishly, wanted to see the improvement continue in the area. But most likely, I would not have lobbied [corporate management] so hard without the renovation at Kingsley Square.”

Larry Sidoti, co-founder of Juice It Up Franchise Corp., indicated his faith in Lake Highlands and the center when negotiating the lease.

“The community is right, the density and population … all aspects that surround us there made sense for us,” he said. “There were other opportunities in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, but in this case, we made the right economic deal. It was an opportunity to get in before the market gets really hot.”

Dishman said she’s seen Lake Highlands go through periods of growth and times when businesses withered. The cycle, she said, has moved back to a growth period, and Kingsley Square contributed to the turn. She also said the refurbished center could serve as a guide for improvements elsewhere.

Washburne owns a stake in Mi Cocina and said the restaurant steadily has outperformed the original location in the center by 20 percent to 25 percent. He also said merchants continue to sign new leases, and that the center soon would reach 100 percent occupancy.

“A nail salon will be opening up soon, and we’re talking with an ice cream shop, which I can’t announce yet,” he said. “It could be open by January, and that will make it 100 percent.”

Lake Highlands resident J.J. Pair said in an e-mail message that the renovations have spurred talks of new high-end residential development near Kingsley Square, and that the shopping center has instilled confidence in area residents.

“I can only imagine that this new development will bring up the surrounding multifamily locations,” she said.

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