CWP Quoted in Port Orange Retail Development Article

“We should see the pads of the two boxes, BJ’S (Wholesale Club) and LA Fitness, starting in two to three weeks,” said Shad Cunningham, a broker and partner with Sooner Investment, a commercial real estate developer headquartered in Oklahoma City.

Sooner and a Charlotte, N.C.-based company called Collett and Associates, are partners in developing the 162,000-square-foot Altamira Village shopping center. The partnership is called Four Lanes LLC.

“We anticipate the opening of the two stores in the second quarter, sometime between March and May. It doesn’t take long to get them up. They go pretty quick,” said Cunningham.

Quick is not how the project as progressed so far at the busy Dunlawton Avenue/Taylor Road intersection, just east of Interstate 95.

Developers began acquiring the land for the proposed the 33-acre shopping center eight years ago, but the city did not approve the project’s site plan until this past January.

The Great Recession, which began in late 2007, stalled the project as did the lengthy and complicated discussions between the developers and the city over who would pay to relocate a mosquito control drainage canal that ran through the middle of the property as well as construction of the Yorktowne Boulevard extension behind the planned shopping center.

“For sure all three were factors as was an unexpected water line break (earlier this year),” Cunningham said. “But things have moved since we got the agreement on the road and canal.”

The canal relocation project has already begun.

Construction delays cost the developers two possible tenants: department store chains Bealls and Kohl’s. The latter decided to build its Port Orange store in 2008 on the other side of the I-95 at Westport Square shopping center.

Other retail development projects in the area, however, did manage to move forward.

CBL & Associates Properties and The Benchmark Group built The Pavilion at Port Orange shopping center, which opened in 2010, just west of I-95. A couple of smaller stores recently were built in front of the Lowe’s Home Improvement store, across the street from Altamira Village.

“The regional meetings we go to, like the International Council of Shopping Centers, there’s no talk of a global demand for new retail, but we’ve managed to get a reasonable share,” said Wayne Clark, the city’s development services director. “That area of the city has been undeserved in retail a long time considering the residential growth nearby.”

Construction at Altamira Village finally got under way 18 months ago.

Work crews are currently putting the finishing touches on a three-unit retail building on one of four outparcels along Dunlawton Avenue. Completion of that building is expected in mid-December.

One of the new building’s tenants is Aspen Dental, a Syracuse, N.Y.-based national chain with more than 340 offices in 22 states, including 28 in Florida. This will be Aspen’s second office in Volusia County.

Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt is another tenant set to open in the new building. The Port Orange store will be the Oklahoma City-based chain’s first in the Volusia-Flagler area.

The building’s third unit has not yet been leased, but talks are currently under way with a restaurant operator, Cunningham said.

A CVS Pharmacy opened at Altamira Village in June 2011 and a Golden Corral restaurant opened there two months ago, joining the pre-existing Superwash Express car wash.

The development plans for Altamira Village include a BJ’s gas station and a 9,600-square-foot, multi-tenant retail building, which is to be built next to Golden Corral along Taylor Road.

Melbourne-based Space Coast Credit Union recently bought a fourth outparcel at Altamira Village, paying $1.11 million for a roughly 1-acre lot.

Four Lanes LLC in turn recently bought three acres from Altamira Village’s neighbor to the north: Dunlawton Yorktowne LLC, a company managed by Paul Holub of Holub Development in Ormond Beach and Charles Lichtigman, chairman and CEO of Charles Wayne Properties, a Daytona Beach commercial real estate firm.

The property was needed to provide room and parking spaces for BJ’s Wholesale Club, Lichtigman said.

Lichtigman and Holub still own about 11.5 acres on the north side of Altamira Village. The property is subdivided into four small road-front tracts and a larger parcel to the rear. The men are working with Four Lanes LLC to eventually build their side so the two projects look as one.

“We’re talking with several potential users, but nothing definite yet,” Lichtigman said in regards to possible tenants. “We’re on the corner of Dunlawton and Yorktowne and talking to a variety of parties, banks and gas stations.”

About 35,000 vehicles a day use Dunlawton Avenue in front of Altamira Village. Other developers have taken noticed.

A small strip center in front of Lowe’s is home to Starbucks Coffee, Mattress Firm and Chipolte Mexican Grill. A Verison Wireless store also was built and opened.

Around the corner at The Pavilion at Port Orange, city planners are reviewing plans for a new Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant, the first in Volusia and Flagler counties, and a Firestone Complete Auto Care shop.

“The Pavilion has helped focus the retail sector on that interchange. People know about it now,” said Lichtigman. “There is competition between the Pavilion and other centers like Altamira, but overall, its’ helped bring attention to the area.”