Image courtesy of Evson, Inc.
0312 Lane Parke 01
View north along Main Street of the proposed retail and office/commercial space.
The developers of Lane Parke in Mountain Brook Village anticipate securing financing and releasing a list of retailers in the next two weeks. John Evans, principal of developer Evson Inc., announced that Phase I of the development’s retail space is 90 percent preleased at the Feb. 23 city council premeeting. Eight percent of the space must be preleased before receiving financing.
“We have approached the lenders that are very interested to say, ‘Sharpen your pencils, we are ready to go,’” Evans said.
Evans said he anticipates selecting a lender next week and releasing a list of tenants soon thereafter.
“We are very excited,” Evans said. “I know it’s taken and long time and there are a lot of naysayers, but we have stayed true to our desire to have a boutique retail to match the apartments and Kessler’s [Grand Bohemian Hotel].”
Robert Jolly of Retail Specialists said he cannot release the names of specific tenants yet but did share descriptions of them.
Restaurants include a concept similar to Houston’s that specializes in hand-cut steaks, an organic burger concept, a Nashville-based concept that blends Tex Mex and Southern food and one other. There will also be an ice cream shop that uses grass grazed dairy products, a New Orleans-based coffee shop, an outdoors outfitter and a high end furnishings and décor store.
“It sounds like granola village to me,” Mayor Oden said, joking, at the meeting.
All these occupants will create sales tax for the city, Jolly noted. Out of all of the new tenants, only one is based in Alabama. Two are out of Nashville, two out of Atlanta, one out of Charlotte, one out of New Orleans and out of Auburn.
Western Supermarket and A’mano will also be relocating from the current shopping center to the new development. Together those existing stores will occupy 31,000 of the 66,640 square feet in Phase I. Only 6,000 square feet remains to be leased at the moment.
Once the Western has moved locations, the existing shopping center will be torn down up until Rite-Aid’s wall. Jolly said they are still trying to make an offer with Rite-Aid, but that as things stand, the pharmacy can remain in its spot until 2019. The post office plans to remain as long as the Rite-Aid does.
Regarding the other businesses, Jolly said he is not sure about The Dande Lion and that they have not made deal with them, and that he knows Ollie Irene’s owners are looking all over Mountain Brook and other Over the Mountain areas for a new space.
“We tried to accommodate them, but that didn’t work out,” Jolly said of the restaurant.
The building that houses Treadwell’s barbershop will remain as-is even after Lane Parke is complete.
Jolly said they will wait a while before preleasing Phase II of the retail area, which will mostly feature boutique retailers and not many, if any, restaurants. He said they have long list of prospects for that phase and that he thinks Phase I’s completion will be a good catalyst to recruit them.
Elsewhere in the development, construction on the development’s apartments is complete, and they are at 50 percent occupancy and anticipate being at 90 percent by October. The Grand Bohemian Hotel anticipates opening by late summer of this year.
