New development on Hwy. 79

New development on Hwy. 79

By Amy Stansbury Friday, 07 November 2008

The shopping center at the northeast corner of IH 35 and Hwy. 79 has looked pretty much the same since it was built in the 1970s, but not for much longer. Developers plan to raze the buildings there and build a 1.1 million sq. ft. mixed-use town center, Citi Centre, that could include a seven-story hotel, conference facility, theater, and multiple restaurants and stores.

“The idea is to make it a community center — a pedestrian-friendly, multimodal, new urbanist development that will bring people into the center of the city,” said John Joseph of Clark, Thomas & Winters, the law firm representing the Midland, Texas-based property owners.

Vision

Round Rock East Realty Partners and BKRX Limited bought the 13-acre property together in July 2006. A few months later, they submitted a site plan to the city for the western most portion of the property, but could not get it approved.

City manager Jim Nuse said the property owners initially wanted to clean up, paint and give the shopping center a little facelift, but the city encouraged them to think bigger because of its location.

“This property is really a piece of downtown,” Nuse said. “It has a potential of being a very powerful shopping center, and it could very well be a dense intersection.”

In Joseph’s Sept. 25 presentation to the city council, he said that last year, Nuse effectively persuaded the property owners to embrace a new vision for downtown Round Rock that includes a new urban downtown core. The property owners feel they are adopting that vision with a major landmark — a $200 million-plus, planned unit development at the city’s gateway intersection.

“This was the nudging we got from the city manager and the planning staff to shift us into a new thinking about how to take this 13-acre tract of land and redevelopment in a new vision,” Joseph said to the council.

The council’s feedback on the presentation was positive. Mayor Alan McGraw and Councilman Scott Rhode told Joseph they liked the design of the shopping center, created by Round Rock-based Moman Architects.

“It’s that kind of thinking and that thought process and that vision that we want,” McGraw said. “That’s a huge statement that you’re making with those plans.”

Councilman Rufus Honeycutt wanted to know if the theater shown in the plans would have a stage for plays and concerts. Joseph said design plans are not final and any type of space the community would use will be welcome there.

Seeing is believing

It may seem hard to imagine the nondescript strip center becoming a vibrant, walkable, mixed-use development where people shop, eat, live and work. But Nuse said he believes it can happen.

“First off, unless you have the vision early on, it’ll never happen,” he said. “Unless you plan for the utilities and the infrastructure, how the traffic will be handled and have an infrastructure in place or something of that magnitude, it’ll never happen.”

Nuse has also seen areas of the country where these mixed-use developments have been successful.

“It really does happen, and where it happens is where it springs up around really good transportation nodes,” he said. “In Round Rock, there’s really no better one than [Hwy.] 79 and the interstate [IH 35.]”

Timeline

Construction on the first phase of the development is expected to begin early next year. It includes an L-shaped, 35,000 sq. ft., single-level building for retail, office and restaurant space near the street on the northwest corner of Hwy. 79 and Mays Street.

“It provides for moving the retail and office up to the city streetscape with landscaping and pedestrian accessibility through the facility from the exterior to the interior,” Joseph said. “It has open areas for dining and meeting, so that it is an inviting area that attracts pedestrians, retail shoppers and users to the area, hopefully creating that synergy for us moving toward the type of vision that the city manager and the city planning staff have.”

The timing of phase two has yet to be determined, but in August 2010, the property owners plan to submit a zoning change request to the city to secure approval for a planned unit development, or PUD, at the site. It is currently zoned commercial, which does not allow for residential housing.

“It’s going to take some time, and it will be somewhat driven by the market, but we’re starting right now,” Joseph said to the council. “We’re committing time, money and effort into getting it to happen as soon as we can.”

Components planned for Citi Centre

• Four star hotel Nine stories, 200 rooms
• Conference center 35,000 sq. ft. of meeting space
• Medical/professional office 200,000 sq. ft.
• Owner-occupied residential 40 two-bedroom condominiums
• Rental residential 210 units, various sizes
• Large retailers 100,000 sq. ft.
• Restaurant 30,000 sq. ft.
• Entertainment 30,000 sq. ft.
• Public spaces — Pocket park, commons area and esplanade
• Parking 2,500+ spaces, structured and surface lot
• Multimodal transportation — Vehicular, pedestrian and mass transit
• Completed development — Approximately 1.1 million sq. ft. on 13-acre tract

Source: Clark, Thomas & Winters

Existing retailers

Round Rock East shopping center

Construction on phase one of the Citi Centre project is expected to begin in January 2009 and include the portion of the existing strip center where H-E-B was once located. This section is vacant and will be the only area demolished for the first stage of the project. The remainder of the development requires a zoning change that is expected to take 12 months to secure.

The following businesses will be vacated and their representatives said it is premature to say whether they will relocate or close permanently.

• AutoZone
• Bealls
• Chase Bank
• Hollywood Video
• Kentucky Fried Chicken
• Sally Beauty Supply
• Spa Pro Nails & Tan
• Supercuts
• The UPS Store