FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Jim Cramer
K2 Group, LLC
132 North Woods Blvd.
Suite C-2
Columbus, OH 43235
Phone: 614 430.9960
www.k2realtygroup.com
info@k2realtygroup.com
Upscale 'Shoppes' coming to town
Columbus, OH - April 06, 2005 - K2 Group and the Shoppes at River Ridge where featured in the March 31st 2005 issue of the Dublin Villager.
Article:
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Upscale 'Shoppes' coming to town
By MICHAEL RACEY Village Staff Writer
The latest in suburban retail development will be up and ready for business in Dublin in one year.
Construction is slated to begin in May or June on the $24-million "The Shoppes at River Ridge" project on a 14.8-acre site at the southeast corner of the intersection of West Dublin-Granville Road and Riverside Drive.
The land wraps around the Wendy's at 6420 Riverside, but the fast-food restaurant will not be a part of this project.
The site is owned by MDT Real Estate Management LP. The developer of the project is The K2 Group.
K2 representatives say they are targeting an April 2006 grand opening.
K2 hired local architect Bird Houk Collaborative to design "The Shoppes," an eight building center with more than 84,000 square feet of retail and nearly 20,000 square feet of restaurant space, with the architectural tenor of Historic Dublin.
Rather than plop a run-of-the-mill, aesthetically challenged strip mall onto the site, K2 planners wanted to create something Dublin lacks: an upscale shopping site in the character of Easton Town Center near New Albany or The Shops at Lane Avenue in Upper Arlington.
K2 and Bird Houk have designed a walking-mall atmosphere where five retail and three restaurant buildings win be interspersed with parking spaces and landscaping.
"The goal was not to replicate Historic Dublin but bring some of those characteristics across the river," Cramer said.
The area is an "undeserved market," according to Cramer, for this kind of development, known in the retail trade as a "lifestyle center."
The area has two major thoroughfares Dublin-Granville and Sawmill roads - and affluent residents.
"It's really leveraged all of that," Cramer said. "Dublin's strong demographics support all of that. At the end of the day, (upscale tenants) have to have those demographics."
Cramer wouldn't name specific occupants for the site but would say he is in contract negotiations with two "high-end" potential tenants to occupy two of the restaurant buildings.
The third restaurant site will be occupied by a Panera Bread, Wolfgang Puck's Express or other similar style of chain restaurant.
"In terms of the site itself, I think it's a great 'tweener, if you will, between (the malls at) Polaris (and) Tuttle and Easton," said Cramer, who co-owns K2 with his partner Dean Kissos.
The site, which is zoned for retail use, won the conceptual blessing of Dublin's Planning and Zoning Commission earlier this month.
Those who trek up and down Riverside regularly will be interested to know a gravel car-sales Jot and billboards on the site just south of Wendy's will be a thing of the past.
One of the restaurants will overlook a pond with two fountains in place of the lot and billboards once construction is finished.
mracey@thisweeknews.com
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Based in Columbus, K2 Group is a commercial real estate development and advisory firm that specializes in developing unique retail centers. The company focuses on relatively smaller projects - 250,000 square feet or smaller - that can complement and become integral within an established community.
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