Tuesday, December 28, 1999
Teardown may revive plaza
Lowe's interested in run-down site
BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS — When it opened 20 years ago, Delco Plaza was the place to shop in Campbell County.
City officials have been trying for at least five years to breathe new life into the now nearly deserted center. The newest hope is to rebuild the site by allowing what is there to be torn down.
Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse, which has stores in Florence and Colerain Township, is interested in building a 150,000-square-foot store at the Delco Center site.
Located on U.S. 27 just a mile from Northern Kentucky University, the plaza was once a bustling hub of commerce. During its first decade, Kroger, Kmart, Radio Shack, Wendy's, Steinberg's, Walgreens, a dry cleaner, video store, pet store, apparel shop, fitness center and consumer lending business all called the 20-acre plaza home.
Progress passed it by
But new roads built in the 1980s and early 1990s — Interstate 471 and the AA Highway — bypassed the center. Traffic, growth, development and many of Delco's tenants — including Kroger, KMart, Walgreens and Radio Shack — headed south to Alexandria and Cold Spring.
All that's left is a martial arts school, a cabinet maker and a Pizza Hut restaurant in the center's parking lot. The parking lot is marked by cracks and potholes. Yellow, handmade “closed” signs hang in the windows of what was Kroger. And light-brown plywood covers a large window crack in the former Kmart.
Even a McDonald's across the street has closed.
“I remember when that spot was a big shopping center,” said Gary DeVoto, a Highland Heights resident who grew up in Fort Thomas. “Now, there's hardly anything there.”
Deal in talking stage
Lowe's, the Wilkesboro, N.C.-based chain, hasn't bought the property or announced that it will build a store in Highland Heights. But Lowe's spokeswoman Suzanne McCoy said Monday the company is interested in the market and has talked to the city about Delco Plaza.
And last week, Highland Heights City Council approved some minor zoning changes that will allow Lowe's to build a store on the shopping center property.
Welcome by city
“We're tickled to death,” Councilman Gene White said Monday. “The only disadvantage is what it might do to some of the other stores in the area. Hopefully, (Lowe's) won't hurt them too bad. “But (council) has to do what's right for the city ... and we needed somebody to go in that spot,” Mr. White said.
Lowe's plans to tear down the existing buildings, with the exception of the Pizza Hut and the former Wendy's, and begin construction of the new store in six or seven months, Mr. White said.
The city has tried to attract a developer or new owner to the Delco Plaza. Four years ago, it drafted a redevelopment plan calling for a theater, restaurants and specialty retailers.
Even though the plaza is just two blocks from where I-471 intersects with U.S. 27, retailers and others have located to new shopping centers in Cold Spring and Alexandria.
Location, location?
Lou Sauser owns the Highland Garden Center just down U.S. 27 from the Delco Plaza. While glad that some development is coming, he questions whether Lowe's can succeed in a spot other retailers have shunned.
“We've done fine because we've been here for a long time and have a good customer base,” Mr. Sauser said Monday. “That spot might be kind of out of the way for something like a Lowe's.
“If McDonald's and Wendy's can't make it, I don't know how they are going to,” he said.
Mr. DeVoto said he would have preferred something more “family-oriented” at the site, such as a park, an indoor recreation center with a gym or a movie theater.
“I don't think we need something that is going to bring a lot of traffic to this area,” said Mr. DeVoto.
“A nice big sports complex would have been nice, but I'm worried a big place like (Lowe's) will just make things more congested around here.”
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