Fallen Timbers awaits tax OK; Southwyck rebuilding nears

The former Media Play store in Spring Meadows is undergoing conversion to a Best Buy store.

The former Media Play store in Spring Meadows is undergoing conversion to a Best Buy store.

A final tax agreement between General Growth Properties and the city of Maumee is all that is holding up the long-awaited Shops at Fallen Timbers shopping center project off U.S. 24 near the interchange with I-475.

Meanwhile, a planned renovation of the Southwyck Shopping Center in Toledo could with start demolition and construction this fall.

Those two project are the largest in the public eye. But another proposed project in southern Lucas County continues to lurk, and still another has been withdrawn.

And in Springfield Township, the Spring Meadows Place Shopping Center is close to adding a new major tenant, Best Buy, and nearby property being developed for a Wal-Mart is to be opening soon.

Jim Graham, a spokesman for General Growth, of Chicago, said construction continues at the Maumee site even though a ground-breaking can't occur until the tax agreement is done, possibly this summer.

Property near Spring Meadows in Springfield Township is being developed for a Wal-Mart that is to open soon.

"A ceremonial ground-breaking is still planned, and at that ceremony we will announce the first retailers going into the project" he said.

Foundation pads for buildings have been constructed and underground utilities have been laid at the million-square-foot project, which was first proposed in 1998 and has changed form and names, Mr. Graham said.

At Southwyck, developer Larry Dillin, of Dillin Corp., said his plan to turn the sparsely populated enclosed shopping center into a retail village setting - at a cost of $100 million to $150 million - was greeted enthusiastically in May at a shopping center convention in Las Vegas.

Southwyck Shopping Center is to become a mixed-use retail village that will include Stautzenberger College.

"We were overwhelmed by the reaction," he said. "We had numerous meetings with existing tenants, former tenants, and potential new tenants."

He is involved with multiple negotiations with anchor tenants and lenders, he added.

The plan, he said, has received high marks from lenders and investors, so next is finishing a financial analysis to determine how much money the project will need before securing funding.

That can be done over the next few months so he can start demolition and construction to allow Stautzenberger College, a private business school, to move into the 40,000-square-foot former Lion for the Home store by fall, 2007.

Although Mr. Dillin's Town Center at Levis Commons in Perrysburg is about to start construction on a new phase, another developer said he plans to proceed with a nearby project announced a year ago.

Visconsi Companies Ltd., of Pepper Pike, Ohio, is to build a 200,000-square-foot complex, Perrysburg Point, on the southeast corner of State Rte. 25 and Eckel Junction Road, a mile north of Levis Commons. But Gary Stevens, a Visconsi vice president, said no ground work has begun.

Another project slated for State Rte. 25 south of Roachton Road is dead. Denis Ross, vice president of Cedarwood Development Inc., of Akron, said the company allowed an option to buy land for its 300,000-square-foot Shoppes at Perrysburg to expire.

But the same developer is close to finishing the addition behind Spring Meadows Place that will feature Wal-Mart, a Sky Bank branch, and a small 6,000-square-foot retail building.

Spring Meadows Place, which is owned by Ramco-Gershenson Properties Trust, of Southfield, Mich., is on schedule to convert the former Media Play store in its center into the new site for Best Buy. The electronics store is relocating by fall from its store at Airport Highway and Reynolds Road in Toledo.

Contact Jon Chavez at:

jchavez@theblade.com

or 419-724-6128.