Keri just put up an interesting post (look below this one) about the Town Center ground-breaking last week; I missed the event because I was out of town, but it sounds like Prescott did a heck of a job of creating some excitement about the project. But now that the first existing apartment buildings have been felled by the bulldozer, some of the project’s specifics are finally becoming clear. Prescott says it’s targeting a six-or-so-screen movie/dinner theater, a small grocer and a bookstore as anchors for the 250,000-square-feet of retail planned (none of which have been announced yet), another 50,000 square feet of office space and about 1,700 apartments/condos/townhomes. The projected $400 million project (built-out cost) also will feature a clock tower that turns red when the LH football team wins.
Even more specifics: the townhomes will be priced between $300,000-$500,000, some zero-lot-line homes will be between $400,000-$700,000, the apartments will rent for about $1.35-$1.45 per square foot ($1,350 for a 1,000-square-foot apartment), and the retail rental rate is expected to be $30-$40 per square foot. Just by way of comparison, the retail at Hillside Village (Mockingbird & Abrams), which also has a big neighborhood retail component, rents for about $20 per square foot. You can also expect to see about $20 million spent on parks and jogging-type trails on the 70-acre project, of which 20 acres or so will be parkland (somewhere in there will be a public amphitheater, too). So there you have it — that’s the master plan.
Jerry Allen told the ground-breaking crowd that he expected build-out to be 2-3 years; that’s the same thing he told us shortly after he took office. But the city is planning for a 19-year build out, meaning it’s expecting to take up to 19 years to completely build everything in the master plan. I suspect Prescott is hoping for a little quicker completion, but I don’t see any way the project will be completed in three years — absolutely no way. Prescott will be doing well to have the first apartments, a retail anchor or two, some office space and the parks done by then — and I do mean they’ll be "doing well" if that much is done in three years. With the impending credit crunch, a general slowing of the economy and the difficulty of leasing up a project like this far from major thoroughfares (like Central), it’s simply going to take awhile to realize the dream.
The plan looks great on paper, but as with every real estate project, the devil is in the details — and starting with the anchor retail spots, Prescott can expect tough sledding in getting started since there are very few movie/dinner theaters, bookstores and small grocers left. It’s not going to be impossible, that’s for sure, but it’s going to be tough.
