BRIDGEWATER, NJ-General Growth Properties has gotten final planning board approval to build a 150,000-sf lifestyle shopping center on the same site as, but apart from, the existing 900,000-sf Bridgewater Commons. Officials of the Chicago-based developer say they expect to start construction this spring and have the yet-to-be-named complex ready for occupancy in late 2006.

And while the expansion will be closely identified with the existing Bridgewater Commons, it will have a different "feel," says Robert Byrne, a General Growth vice president. According to the final plans approved by local officials, the center will actually be a group of buildings arrayed in more of a downtown-style arrangement.

General Growth has yet to reveal any potential tenants for the expansion. However, such names as LL Bean, Restoration Hardware, Crate and Barrel and Pottery Barn emerged during discussions leading up to planning board approval.

Plans for the lifestyle center began when Bridgewater Commons was owned by the Rouse Co. Originally built in the 1980s by the Hahn Co., it moved into the Rouse portfolio in the late 1990s when successor TrizecHahn got out of the shopping center business. Rouse and all of its holdings, of course, were acquired late last year by General Growth.

The existing multi-level Bridgewater Commons, anchored by Bloomingdale's, Lord & Taylor and Macy's, generates more than $580 per sf in sales from its upscale tenant mix. It shares the 120-acre site with a three-year-old, 350-room Marriott Hotel and 600,000 sf of class A office space. The new lifestyle center will occupy the southeastern corner of the site.

Final approval came down to some landscaping issues, and as part of the process General Growth agreed to build a berm between the center and the adjacent Route 22. The triangular Bridgewater Commons site is bordered on its three sides by Route 22, Route 202/206 and Interstate 287 in Somerset County.