MIAMI-Publix Supermarket has agreed to be the lead tenant, with28,800 square feet, at the Market Square shopping center in theWest Kendall section of Miami-Dade County. The 70,620-square-footshopping center, which is scheduled to open in August 2011, willalso have a 14,820-square-foot Walgreens store, which is almostcomplete. No other tenants have signed up yet, says Seth Gadinsky,the owner of Gadinsky Real Estate, the leasing agent for thecenter, “although we’ve had interest from multiple retailers,” hesays.

The corner where Market Square is being built, is a very busyone, says Gadinsky. It is a block and a half from Miami-DadeCollege, where roughly 32,000 students study. Still, the shoppingcenter site was not originally zoned for retail. But the developerof the center, PLC Investments, Inc., a real estate affiliate ofthe Cejas family in Miami, convinced the neighbors that a shoppingcenter would not disrupt their neighborhood by promising to put aring of townhomes around the center as a buffer for single familyhomes. This makes the shopping center smaller.

As for the center being big enough to serve local needs, itturns out, says Gadinsky, “that the marketplace doesn’t want abigger shopping center. There is too much local space plaguing alot of other shopping centers already,” he says.