The Fayette Citizen-News Page

Wednesday, August 13, 2003

Target: North PTC

264,000 sq. ft. retail center headed for Kedron Village; planners eye 1,128 parking spaces on 33 acres

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com

and By MICHAEL BOYLAN
mboylan@TheCitizenNews.com

It's official: Target is aiming for Peachtree City.

The "upscale" discount retailer will occupy 125,000 square feet in a 264,000-square foot Phase II expansion of the Kedron Village shopping center that will rival The Avenue in both size and appearance.

Four other "midsize" big-box retailers, occupying spaces of 30,000 to 60,000 square feet each, will join Target. Potential tenants were not identified.

The entire project, once leased, is expected to bring as many as 450 jobs to the city.

To handle the crowds, the developer is asking to add more than 1,100 parking spaces, the prime concern of residents who envision Saturday morning traffic clogging the Georgian Parkway corridor.

For comparison, the Home Depot in Peachtree City is just slightly larger at 137,000 square feet than the proposed Target, while the Wal-Mart building is the city's largest retail structure at 203,000 square feet.

The Peachtree City Planning Commission had its first look at the proposed expansion on Monday, and a large crowd of neighborhood residents, some who protested plans in recent weeks to put a carwash on nearby Georgian Parkway, voiced concerns about the plan.

Mike Cohn, representing the developer, Faison Enterprises, told the crowd that the project "tries to integrate elements already found in Peachtree City." He made comparison to The Avenue, a project that he had worked on previously.

Dennis Payton, chairman of the planning commission, was concerned about all of the impervious surface that was proposed.

Despite its size, the Peachtree City store will not be a "SuperTarget" and thus it will not compete with neighboring Kroger to sell groceries, said Peachtree City Mayor Steve Brown, who met with the project developers and homeowners from the Georgian Hills area to discuss the project before the planning commission meeting.

Phase II of the shopping center will be built in the open field to the right of and slightly downhill from the existing commercial center, curving back toward Hwy. 74, and will include a series of five separate buildings arranged around a central public "gathering place," said Brown. Four smaller "big-box" type retailers would each occupy 30,000 to 60,000 square feet on the ground floors, joined by smaller stores, restaurants and services, said Brown. The second floors of the outbuildings would be leased as offices.

"Aesthetically, it will look very much like The Avenue," said Brown, adding that the original proposal brought to the city by the developer didn't look much different than the single-strip Kroger center that's there now.

"We said, 'No way' and took a proactive approach, bringing the developer and homeowners together to address concerns," Brown said. Chief among them was the relocation of a popular cart path that slices through the trees just beyond the southeast corner of the present shopping center. The Target store will be angled into that space eventually, and the developer agreed to relocate the path in the meantime, Brown said.

The Target will feature what may also be the city's first golf cart "corral," a gated area of 50 golf cart parking spots immediately adjacent to the entrance of the store, extra incentive to take the cart instead of the car to shop, Brown said. Another 30 cart spots would have front-row access in front of each of the outbuildings.

The standard 60- to 80-foot buffer would separate the store from the neighborhoods above it along Georgian Parkway, Brown said, and because of the elevation, the roof of the store will likely be below street level. Target agreed to relocate its loading docks to the side of the building, instead of the traditional rear of the store, to share the alley with next-door Kroger.

There was no indication what retailers would occupy the smaller "anchor" stores, but typically companies like Old Navy, Goody's, Marshall's or Pier One are attracted to developments like this, Brown said.

If plans are approved, the developer will begin work on Phase II in spring, with a completion date in two years.

The Peachtree City Target will be the second store in Fayette County for the Minneapolis-based company. A Target store was the first retailer to open in Fayetteville's Pavilion in 1996. A division of Dayton Hudson Corp., Target has maintained one of the healthiest retail outlooks despite the sour economy. On Friday, it reported an increase in profits for July of more than 10 percent over last year.