"We try to find a busy corner near somebody's successful mall and buy or build a little strip center there," he said.

The developer expects to open the strip center during the summer of 1988.

The buyers used the property to build two strip centers for retail businesses.

Some owners stray far away from the traditional retail focus of strip centers.

The retail strip center will have rents of $18 to $20 a square foot.

But the builders and owners of strip centers have long since discovered that looks count.

Ahead lay a small strip center with six or eight stores.

Introduced April 15, 1946, the strip centers on environmental and ecological themes.

It originally opened a few years earlier as a small strip center before being redeveloped into a mall.

There are malls and small strip centers within two miles.