Anchorage's Fifth Avenue Mall: new quality.

• Position: Alaska

When Indianapolis-based Simon Northwest Inc. bought the ailing Anchorage Fifth Avenue Mall early this year, the city was in the midst of a discount retail explosion. Andy Anderson, a senior leasing representative for Simon's, couldn't have been happier.

"I want to position myself as far away from the discounters as I can," Anderson says. "I want to attract the better retailers. I'm trying to find what's missing."

In Anderson's opinion, what's largely missing from Anchorage retail is quality. He says shoppers looking for higher-quality items often are forced to travel to Seattle and beyond for the things they want. It's his goal, he says, to make those sought-after items available locally.

"We're strictly after quality. ... I'm pushing the affluence," Anderson says without apology.

To do that, Anderson's willing to take his time, though he says his sales pitch to potential tenants has become more difficult in recent months, thanks to hundreds of layoffs among higher-paid workers. "Retail executives across the country are saying, 'All my customers are being laid off and moving out,'" says Anderson, adding that it's his job to convince them that isn't entirely so.

When Simon Northwest purchased the mall from J.C. Penney, the downtown shopping center had an occupancy rate of just 41 percent. Nine months later, the rate was up to 55 percent, well under Anderson's year-end goal of 70 percent. New tenants at the mall include America's Best Contacts & Eyeglasses, The Nature Store, Arctic Flame candle shop and several women's apparel stores.

After spending the past year studying the Anchorage retail market, Anderson says he has a good idea what people want.

"They want The Gap. They want The Limited. They want Victoria's Secret," he says, rattling off the names of popular Outside retailers. The problem, he says, isn't in convincing store owners they would do well here, but in helping them overcome the perceived problem of long-distance management. Having a...