DALLAS-Locally based Hanover Property Co., using its single-family developments as the foundation block, is ratcheting up its strategy to become a leading merchant builder of grocery-anchored centers. To get the ball rolling, the developer plans to start portions of projects before anchors are signed.
"Residents are starving for services," says Ben J. Luedtke, Hanover's vice president of retail services, who joined the firm last fall to help push the expansion plan. He and founder Richard LeBlanc are fine-tuning plans for 13 retail developments so it's highly likely that additional team members will be hired this year.
Luedtke says the new strategy calls for developing inline space for local services while negotiating with national grocery chains for anchor spots. "It's so we can get in the retail immediately without developing the entire center," he tells GlobeSt.com. When the anchor stores rise, additional space will be built to connect old and new space.
The 22-year-old Hanover has just started marketing its largest retail project, the 300,000-sf Shops at Crown Pointe, which will be a 60-acre portal to the City of Keller. The project, with one mile of frontage along US Highway 377, will front Meritage Homes Corp.'s proposed 911-lot Crown Pointe development, which city officials are set to take action on tonight.
Luedtke says construction for the first 100,000 sf could begin in a year at the Shops at Crown Pointe, set to rise at the highway's junction with Mount Gilead Road. "We've had a lot of interest from national retail, box and grocers," he says, adding the development includes a "super center" site. He says Hanover plans to develop retail on 30 of its 60 acres and possibly sell the balance to other commercial developers.
In the summer, Hanover will break ground on a 15,000-sf first phase of inline space for the 119,000-sf Mira Lagos, which will go up in front of an 800-acre, 2,400-lot development at the intersection of England and Lakeridge parkways in Grand Prairie. A summer start also is planned on 20,000 sf of inline space for the 116,000-sf Shops at Lowe's Farm at the junction of North Holland Road, East Broad Street and US Highway 360, the entrance to a 184-acre, 400-lot development in Mansfield.
Similar neighborhood center starts are planned for Hanover's residential developments in Arlington, North Fort Worth and Flower Mound. Though the initial push is focused on Hanover's single-family communities, the plan is to become a merchant builder of medium-size shopping centers all across the metroplex. "We are actively looking for other projects," Luedtke stresses.
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