By Amanda Jedlinsky, KnoxPages.com Business Reporter
MOUNT VERNON – The Coshocton Avenue shopping plaza, which is home to Buffalo Wild Wings, has otherwise been largely vacant since Big Lots moved out two years ago. It is about to undergo a major redevelopment, luring several new, national retailers to Mount Vernon.
Work on the plaza is expected to begin this spring, with plans for some of the four to five new stores to open this fall, said Donn Davids, vice president of leasing and development with US Properties, the Hilliard company that owns the plaza. Buffalo Wild Wings will remain. Davids would not disclose which retailers he is working to bring to the redevelopment because of confidentiality agreements. He expects to make an announcement about the anchor store this spring, he said. The redevelopment will be a substantial improvement to the retail landscape in the community, Davids said.
“We really do bring something new,” he said. “We are not the company that comes in and paints an old retail building and brings in a thrift shop.” He pointed to the company’s work in other cities, such as Springfield, Ohio, where US Properties redeveloped old shopping centers and brought in retailers such as Marshalls, Best Buy, PetSmart, Bed Bath and Beyond, Kohl’s and others.
The Mount Vernon Plaza, as US Properties calls it, has sat mostly vacant for the past two years, but for several years there has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes to plan for the redevelopment and negotiate contracts with retailers, Davids said. Four years ago US Properties began seriously marketing the plaza and came up with a list of retailers that were a good fit, Davids said. Three years ago they had identified the anchor tenant.
The non-renewal of Big Lots’ lease in 2014 was necessary to move the project forward, Davids said. When work begins within the next few weeks or months, depending on a variety of factors, it will focus on the facade and interior, said Brent Racer, a principal at New Avenue Architects and Engineers, the Upper Arlington firm designing the plans.
The roughly 50,000 square-foot building will be divided into smaller spaces with new entries for each store, Racer said.
There is also the potential for a new, smaller, multi-tenant building to be constructed on the east side of the property, Racer said.
US Properties will begin the process of seeking the city’s approval on the plans for the redevelopment of the plaza and the construction of the smaller building at Thursday’s meeting of the municipal planning commission. The planning commission will then make a recommendation to city council.
Joel Daniels, who sits on the planning commission, said the proposed redevelopment is welcome news. “Certainly we don’t like to see empty storefronts and we would welcome any redevelopment of that plaza that would make it productive,” he said.
