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GREENSBORO — Officials at Tanger Factory Outlet Centers Inc.  will return to their roots, a decision some see as a sign that a sick economy may be recovering.

The Greensboro-based  company announced this week that it will proceed with plans to build a $60 million  Tanger Outlet Center of the Piedmont  in Alamance County , where the company got its start in 1981 .

The 317,000-square-foot  center, which should open late next year, will include about 80  stores and employ more than 800  in full- and part-time positions.

It will be built on a 52-acre  tract off Interstate 40/85  in Mebane , just a few miles east of Tanger’s first outlet project, the Burlington Manufacturers Outlet Center .

Tanger, which later sold BMOC , anticipates the new center will attract 5 million  visitors a year, drawing shoppers off the interstate and from the Triad  and Triangle .

“If just 1 million  come, everybody around it is going to profit,” said Glendel Stephenson , Mebane’s mayor . “It will mean capital investment. It will mean retail sales. It will mean jobs. It is going to be good for our city.”

And a good sign for the economy, Alamance officials say.

Tanger began considering the site, part of  a 214-acre , mixed-use development called Arrowhead , three  years ago.

Then, “the perfect storm of an economic recession” hit, said Steven B. Tanger , the company’s president and CEO .

Typically, Tanger wants 50 percent  of a center’s retail spaces leased or committed before proceeding with a project. But when the economy soured, the company upped that total to 65 percent  or 70 percent .

“We’ve always been a conservative company,” Tanger said. “Last year, we decided to be more cautious.”

Now, the company has closed on the purchase of the site.

“We are taking this as another small example that maybe this thing is turning around,” Mac Williams , president of the Alamance County Chamber of Commerce , said of the economy. “It may be a signal.”

The center, Tanger’s third  and largest in North Carolina , will be part of what the developer calls the largest project of its kind in Alamance County.

Arrowhead, built on the former Arrowhead Golf Club  off Mebane Oaks Road , already includes Mebane Medical Park .

The plan, which could exceed $200 million  in investment, includes space for a hotel and restaurants, 240  apartments, 310  single-family homes and possibly a wellness center.

Preliminary work on the center already has begun, and construction will employ more than 300  people. Tanger owns and/or manages 33  outlet centers, including Blowing Rock  and Nags Head,  in 22  states.
 

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com