(For more retail coverage, click GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.)

FOUR CORNERS, FL-Joe Griffith Inc., one of the oldest commercial and residential developers in metro Charleston, SC, plans to develop one of the largest open-air shopping centers in Central Florida in an unincorporated area known as Four Corners, about 15 miles south of Walt Disney World and 40 miles south of Downtown Orlando.

The South Carolina developer is asking Polk County commissioners and the Central Florida Regional Planning Council to approve Four Corners Town Center, a 1.2-million-sf retail campus and a separate 45,000-sf tract for a 16-screen movie theater just south of Ronald Reagan Parkway (County Road 54).

Area construction sources tell GlobeSt.com the project can't be built today for under $85 per sf. That would place the estimated hard construction cost of the center at $102 million.

Planning council staffers tell GlobeSt.com the agency's recommendation to the county will probably be made by February. Polk County will be scheduling public hearings on the planned project over the next three months.

Meanwhile, the county has asked the developer to donate five acres to the Sheriff's Office for the construction of a district command center which would be built next to an existing fire department and EMS station, county sources confirm for GlobeSt.com.

In selecting the Four Corners submarket, Joe Griffith Inc. has targeted the highest traffic-count area in Polk County at Interstate 4 and US 27, according to county planners. Except for a 200,000-sf Wal-Mart Supercenter, there are no big-box retailers in the area.

The only other planned mixed-use venture for Four Corners is the $500-million Posner Park on land that formerly housed the Circus World attraction and later the Boardwalk and Baseball attraction at US 27, just south of Interstate 4, area brokers tell GlobeSt.com. Preliminary Posner Park infrastructure is in the early development stage.

In the Charleston metro area, Joe Griffith Inc. has completed the Mount Pleasant Towne Centre, Lodge Alley Inn, Olde Park subdivision, Charleston National Country Club, RiverTowne & RiverTowne Country Club, Links Course at Wild Dunes, Snee Farm Country Club and 28 drugstores in South and North Carolina and Georgia.

Instant Insights /

South Carolina Developer Plans Estimated $102M Shopping Center

Related Stories

Recommended For You