Owen Brown Village Center Redevelopment

 

Since the life of a Village Center is constantly changing and evolving, I don't find it strange that I'm proposing more redevelopment efforts at Owen Brown Village Center. In the early 2000s, GFS Realty, them owner of Owen Brown demolished a row of stores and rebuilt closer to the front of the Center and used the space once occupied by the old row of stores to expand the Giant. This created a newly modernized Giant and a new row of stores but that's it.

Had GFS Realty wanted to spent the money and do it right, they would have built a new Giant roughly where the new row of stores are, demolished the two back strips of stores and built the entire Center facing Cradlerock Way. The finished product would have looked like Dorsey's Search Village Center. But as it stands now, the Giant cuts the Village Center in half and only the front half sees foot traffic. The back half resembles a ghost town. My redevelopment plan although it doesn;t include building a new Giant, it does include demolishing the back half and redeveloping those spaces as ground floor Retail to a new Apartment Building (like in Wilde Lake) and the entire Center will flow smoother.

To minimize disruption to existing businesses, work would have to be done in phases. The first phase is to build two pad sites just to the right of the Interfaith Center on what is now fields.The pad sites will include Bank of America and the other one include Sonoma's Bar & Grille. Also part of Phase I would be to rebuild the small professional building behind the Bank of America. The new location for this building will be the nook that is in between the Giant and the Avis Car Rental. Once Phase I is completed both the small professional building and the Bank of America Building will be demolished and the space Somona's is currently in will never host another tenant again.

Phase II includes building the Apartments. The building will be located just left of the existing building and where the Bank of America once stood. It will run back towards the old professional building I had demolished. It will have ground floor Retail. The attached Parking Garage will have Apartments on all sides of it and will be placed on an unused parking lot at the back of the Center. The parking garage will also contain ground floor Retail. 

The ground floor Retail will contain the stores that are currently in the back half (Warren's Barbershop, Future Nails, Chick 'N Friends, Budget/Avis Rent-A-Car, and Hunan Master/Chinese Gourmet. With Sonoma's moving to a pad site, there will be three vacancies now. I will build these vacancies into the new Retail to lure three new tenants into the Center. My ideas include; An Ice Cream/FroYo Shop, Women's Hair Salon/Spa, Ethnic Hair Salon, Kabob, and Sushi/Fo Asian Fusion Restaurant. Once this has all been built, the back half of the Center will be demolished.             

Phase III includes the professional Center. This will be relocated behind the Giant so that the illusion that the Center is being cut in half by the Giant is lessened. After that, the existing professional Center will be demolished. Phase IV is a simple one that includes updating the existing facades to match the new construction. A Village Green will be built close to the tunnel going under Cradlerock Way to expand Lake Elkhorn into the Village Center. The road will access all new and existing structures and will start and stop at existing locations. With an updated flow of the Village Center, Owen Brown will stay viable for years to come.