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JC Penney clears rezoning hurdle

By LEE WILLIAMS
lwilliams@TheCitizenNews.com

Fayetteville Planning and Zoning Commission officials unanimously passed a rezoning and two variance requests that will pave the way for Fayetteville’s first J.C. Penney’s store that is scheduled to open in October.

The board approved a request to rezone the Banks Crossing Shopping Center, where the new 98,840 square foot J.C. Penney store will be located, from C-3 or highway commercial to C-4 or high intensity commercial, during their meeting Tuesday at City Hall.

“This is a city initiated rezoning,” Fayetteville Planning and Zoning Director Jahnee Prince told the board. “This is kind of a housekeeping matter.”

Banks Crossing Shopping Center is 254,380 square feet. With the renovation and expansion, it will be 265,180 square feet. The site is zoned C-3, which only allows shopping centers up to 100,000 square feet. Shopping centers as large as Banks Crossing must be zoned C-4, city officials said.

Prince indicated the rezoning request if passed will be a housekeeping matter since the shopping center is already large enough to qualify for C-4 zoning and is adjacent to two four-lane state highways namely Ga. Highways 85 and 314, as required by the zoning ordinance.

The variance requests dealt with Sections 42-71 and 42-72 of the city’s landscaping ordinances, Prince added.

A representative from the Birmingham, Ala.-based AIG Baker Shopping Center, the agency which owns Banks Crossing, initially applied for a variance from Section 94-205 of the Zoning Ordinance, which was the wrong section of the city’s code of ordinances, officials said.

The landscaping ordinance was recently amended to include the highway corridor buffer requirements and the highway corridor buffer requirements were taken out of the zoning ordinance, officials said.

“The mistake was not caught by the staff until the legal ads ran in the newspaper,” officials said. “Unfortunately, due to the abbreviated December Planning and Zoning commission schedule, there was no time to re-advertise the variance application and it was tabled until this month,” officials said. “The remaining variance application is to reduce the required highway corridor buffer from 50 to 25 feet.”

The company will plant a row of sugar maples and crape myrtles and make other improvements at the center, which will drastically reduce the amount of parking. This prompted AIG to apply for a variance on the highway corridor buffer. The company also requested a variance for foundation buffers.

The P&Z staff recommended approval and the item passed 5-0.

Ron Carlson, who is the executive vice president of AIG Baker, attended the meeting. He indicated keys to the building are expected to change hands rather quickly.

“We are hopefully going to turn over the store between July and August and it should be open by October,” Carlson told the board just minutes before the vote.

The move will eliminate at least one empty eyesore at the Banks Crossing Shopping Center. J.C. Penney’s soon will move into the old Kmart. Another anchor tenant is expected to move into the old Stein Mart building, but officials are keeping mum about who the new tenant will be.

Daphne Avila, who is a J.C. Penney’s spokeswoman, confirmed the Plano, Texas-based company’s plans to expand in Fayetteville. She confirmed the store, which will likely employ 100 to 120 people, is expected to open in nine months.

“This center is considered one of our off-mall prototype stores,” Avila said. “This is our effort to bring our department stores closer to the neighborhood. We are not abandoning the mall concept because a lot of people still like to shop at the malls, but we wanted to branch out more into the community, so the off-mall store is kind of a way to do that.”

Avila said the store will feature customer-friendly wider aisles, front-end check-out, a full-service salon and more.

“It’s a salon and spa, so it’s more than just getting your hair done,” Avila said. “You can get pedicures, manicures and massages. And we also have a portrait studio. So if you’re looking fabulous you might as well capture it.”