Washtenaw
Shopping Center Underway
Business to Business Monthly Magazine
Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce
Date -- November, 2001 - By Bill Milliken, CCIM
It has taken over three years. And several of the retail
“faces” have changed.
But site work for Huron Village shopping center is
underway. Strategically positioned on the corner of Washtenaw Avenue and Huron
Parkway (Ann Arbor’s busiest intersection, with about 50,000 cars per day), it
will bring 127,554 square feet of commercial space to market next summer,
including 12,800 square feet of office space. City Council approval of the site
plan was granted in July.
The process has been a painful one, especially since the
Barnes & Noble store that was built on that corner in 1993 will be razed to
make way for the new complex. But Barnes & Noble’s new 30,200 square foot,
2-story store will first be constructed adjacent to it in an effort to help the
store to make a seamless move to its new quarters.
The largest tenant at Huron Village will be Whole Foods,
which will relocate from the Lamp Post shopping center to a 51,000 square foot
store. Busch’s had first cued up for the supermarket space, but later had
second thoughts. Walgreens, which has labored long and hard over a beachhead on
Washtenaw, has agreed to lease a 14,490 square foot “end cap” on the east
end of the Center.
Other tenants include: Panera Bread (4,500 sq. ft.); Adray
Camera (3,000 sq. ft.); Verizon
Wireless (3,000 sq. ft.); and Babbages (1,900 sq. ft.), which will step out into
its own storefront. A 5,500 square foot outlot store has also been approved, and
negotiations are underway with a restaurant operator for the location.
“The concept is to be a neighborhood shopping center, so
it’s more of a streetscape façade,” says architect Robert Kerr, principal
of Metro Group Architects which designed the Center. The 12,800 square feet of
Class A office space will be located above the retail stores, but have a
dedicated entrance at street level.
A neighboring condominium project to the north, which has
just received City of Ann Arbor approval, will have connectors to Huron Village
for both pedestrians and cars. Berkshire Creek was proposed for 84 residential
condominium units.
Bostleman Construction
of Toledo, Ohio is the general contractor for the job.
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Bill Milliken, CCIM