By Cindy Schroeder
Enquirer staff writer
CRESTVIEW HILLS - A shopping center is about 85 percent leased and will likely include Trio's restaurant, the developer says.
By October 2005, Jeffrey R. Anderson Real Estate, the developer who created Rookwood Commons in Norwood, plans to transform the nearly vacant Crestview Hills Mall into the $73 million Crestview Hills Town Center, with restaurants and 60 upscale specialty retailers targeted to women 25 to 55.
"We are 85 percent signed and pre-leased,'' said Mark Fallon, Anderson's vice president of leasing. "Most everybody that we've signed, including Dillard's, has said that this will be their only Northern Kentucky store.''
Meanwhile, Crescent Springs City Council last week approved a development agreement and a plan for the $56 million shopping center about two miles away off Anderson Road. Bear Creek Capital of Montgomery has said that project will include a Remke Markets, Rhodes Furniture and Mimis Cafe, but has declined to name other tenants.
"We're in various stages of negotiation with 80 to 90 percent of the tenants, but have nothing to announce,'' said Greg Scheper, Bear Creek's director of acquisitions and governmental affairs. He said clearing has begun, and Bear Creek has submitted a final development plan to area planners.
Last week, Home Relocation Services started giving out relocation checks to some of the 129 families who must leave a mobile home park to make way for the Crescent Springs retail project. That distribution should take three to four weeks, said Nathan Smith, a spokesman for Home Relocation Services.
Scheper said he doesn't see the Crestview Hills project as competition for Bear Creek's Buttermilk Towne Center, which is scheduled to open July 1.
"I think both projects will be successful,'' Scheper said. "They both have their own character and niche.''
At the outdoor Crestview Hills Town Center, construction of a Max & Erma's restaurant will begin in January, said Philip Drake, director of real estate for Max & Erma's. The restaurant is scheduled to open by the end of next summer.
This winter, crews will continue to build the Dillard's department store at the south end of the development, and work on parking, as well as infrastructure for the lifestyle center, Fallon said. When the new Dillard's opens in early March, the current store and the rest of the mall will be demolished.
Crestview Hills Town Center tenants
The shopping center will be home to 60 specialty retailers and restaurants. They include:
