Ryan Negotiates Sites for 215,000-SF Center

LAKE GENEVA, WI-Ryan Companies US Inc. is building the 215,000-sf Lake Geneva Commons shopping center on 18 acres here at the intersection of Route 12 and Highway 50. The project, expected to cost more than $20 million, will have Target and Best Buy as anchor stores.

The 125,000-sf Target is now being constructed, and should be open for business by Dec. 1. Work on the 30,000-sf Best Buy will start after the Target opens, and should be complete by 2008. The site will also include another 14,000 sf of inline retail space, and two outlots.

Randy Danielson, director of retail development for Ryan, tells GlobeSt.com that the company is working on finalizing letters of intent with some fashion tenants for the inline space, and negotiating with a restaurant to take one of the outlots. “We’ll probably have four additional tenants besides the Target and Best Buy,” he says. “We’re working on two letters of intents for the inline space.”

Danielson says the community, known as an area mostly frequented by tourists, is starting to become more than just a summer vacation spot. “There’s been a little deeper population density, more people are staying and using their homes up around the lake on a year-round basis. It’s a good demographic to build on, it picks up from many trade areas, including Delavan to the north.”

The company is already building a few major shopping centers in the Midwest, such as the Brookside Marketplace in Tinley Park, IL and Orchard Pointe in Fitchburg, WI. The 550,000-sf Brookside is about 90% complete, at Harlem and I-80, and Orchard Pointe is anchored by a Super Target and 17,000 sf of small shop and outlot space. “The retail market is steady, but not super-charged like it has been the past few years. We’ve been on a tremendous growth cycle, it’s going to slow down for a little while,” Danielson says.