2 new businesses coming to The Shops on Montevallo near Mountain Brook
Two new tenants are coming soon to The Shops on Montevallo, a 65,000-square-foot neighborhood retail center located at 4500 Montevallo Road near Mountain Brook and several other communities, including Crestwood, Eastwood and Irondale.
Sola Salon Studios — a franchise concept that allows hair stylists and other beauty professionals to operate independently-owned private salons under one roof — has signed a lease with Continental Realty Corporation for 5,480 square feet of space in the center.
The facility is expected to open in the first quarter of 2022, according to a news release in October from CRC.
It will be located adjacent to Planet Fitness, said a CRC spokesperson.
A new Compton Ace Hardware location is also scheduled to open in the center in early 2022, according to a spokesperson for Birmingham businessman Don Compton, the store’s owner.
The hardware store will measure 10,395 square feet.
It will take over the space formerly occupied by Bedzzz Express, which is relocating to a different part of the center.
The Shops on Montevallo services Mountain Brook, one of Birmingham’s wealthiest neighborhoods, and draws consumer traffic from Crestline, Crestwood, Eastwood, and Irondale.
More than 22,000 households are located within a three-mile radius, with average household incomes exceeding $95,000.
The center is anchored by Planet Fitness, with additional tenants including Pizza Hut, Subway and Bedzzz Express.
The new Sola Salon Studios location is the seventh in Alabama for franchise owner King Rogers and his 10th overall, with three other locations in Tennessee.
Hair stylists, estheticians, eyebrow artists, barbers and nail technicians are among the beauty professionals expected to use the facility.
Matt Briger and Stratton Smith co-founded this salon studio concept in 2004 with the goal of building a thriving community for independent beauty professionals, according to the release.
There are approximately 630 Sola Salon Studios in the United States, and Rogers has been a franchisee since 2013.
“Sola Salon Studios has proven to be a tremendous business model for all parties involved and this industry sorely needed a concept in which beauty professionals could function as their own boss and make important decisions in their best interest,” Rogers said.
Compton operates eight other Ace Hardware locations and four CC Food Mart convenience stores in Birmingham.
He announced in May that he had signed a lease with CRC for the space at The Shops on Montevallo.
The store is centrally located near Irondale, Eastwood and Crestwood, as well as Crestline and the rest of Mountain Brook, one of the metro area’s wealthiest neighborhoods.
The retail center “reaches an extremely broad economic area ranging from $30,000 annual households to those approaching $500,000,” Compton told Village Living in August.
We intend to satisfy the needs of each customer with personalized service and knowledge of our craft,” Compton said. “That is what will separate us from the experience at big-box hardware stores.
Ace Hardware will carry such brand names as Benjamin Moore, Big Green Egg, Craftsman, DeWalt, Scotts, Weber and Yeti.
”I think there is a void that we are going to fill in that area as far as a quality hardware store,” Compton said.
“We were particularly attracted to the proximity of several major grocery stores and nearby highways, including Interstate 20 and Interstate 459, which will enable our entrepreneurs and their customers to access this location easily,” Rogers said in the CRC release regarding the advantages of The Shops on Montevallo.