Monday, January 19, 2015

New retail centers on Crain Highway

 Just some updates on projects on Crain Highway in the Waldorf area.  Above is what we are going to be turning the old American Hardware into this year.  Construction will begin in a few months.  They will be gutting, refacing and adding to the building for a total of around 15,000 square feet.  It should be ready by the end of the year.  Already have a few tenants lined up.
This project is a new retail center closer to Pinefield.   This was the old thrift store next to Mr. Tire that had burned down.  This one is closer to completion but no word on any tenants yet.  Updates as we get them.  I like to see old buildings re purposed  rather than building new but sometimes the cost to do it is way to high.

Lets clear up some misinformation

OK I have received numerous emails and comments about this one property so I want to get this cleared up.  There is a  property at the corner of Billingsley road and St. Charles parkway that is zoned for commercial.  One of the home builders made a claim that there was a 500,000 square foot retail complex coming to the corner and Harris Teeter was a tenant.  That is totally false.
Harris Teeter did their research and they do not like the demographics of the area.  So as of now they have no plan to come to the area.  Many of the tenants like Trader Joes, Wegmans & Whole Foods want high population along with higher household incomes.  We do meet the income requirements but they fail to see that even though we are a smaller population we eat and shop like crazy people.
We are second in the state for food and beverage sales only being beat out by Anne Arundel county by a few thousand dollars.  No matter what you put in front of some of these retailers they still go by their charts and calculations and go with what that says.  Some would have to put a lot of infrastructure in place to make it work as well like distribution centers so the cost may outweigh the profit.  We do our best, we cant get them all.  But we try.