The Container Store confirmed that it has locked up the former Borders bookstore space at Fort Worth's Chapel Hill Shopping Center, which is anchored by Central Market, and is headed toward a 2013 opening.

"The property is confirmed," Nina Smith, spokeswoman for the Coppell-based retailer, said Thursday via e-mail.

The Container Store is opening seven stores next year, "so our attention is directed to those stores," she said. "At this point, it will be 2013" before the company opens the Chapel Hill store.

The Container Store has one other Tarrant County opening scheduled next year: a March opening in a 25,000-square-foot space at the Highlands development in south Arlington. That store will employ 50 to 70 people.

UCR Realty, leasing agent for Chapel Hill, says in a marketing brochure that The Container Store has taken the 25,000-square-foot Borders space, across the parking lot from Central Market. Borders closed this year when the bookstore chain went out of business.

"At 100 percent leased, Chapel Hill is anchored by Fort Worth's only Central Market, whose sales at this location have grown 61 percent since opening in 2002," UCR says in the brochure. "... Additionally, the property features prominent national retail anchors including Container Store (which currently has only six stores in Dallas-Fort Worth) as well as Cost Plus World Market."

The center, at Interstate 30 and Hulen Street, is passed by more than 175,000 vehicles daily, and the average annual income of households within three miles exceeds $86,000, UCR says.

The Container Store has two other Tarrant locations: one in Fort Worth on South Hulen Street at Interstate 20, and another in Southlake, which moved from Arlington's Lincoln Square several years ago.

Scott Nishimura,

817-390-7808

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