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Grocer may anchor city shopping plaza
(by Sue Reid - August 10, 2012)
Grocer may anchor city shopping plaza
By SUE REID
While Solon Village redevelops around the corner with a top-end Giant Eagle Market District, Solon Square Shopping Center on Aurora Road (Route 43) soon may boast an anchor tenant of its own.
City Planning Director Robert S. Frankland said Monday that the city has received an application from Mid-America Management Corp., owners of the shopping plaza, to put an Earth Fare supermarket in the former Stein Mart space.
The grocer, one of the largest natural and organic food retailers in the country dubbed as a “healthy supermarket,” will occupy slightly more than 31,000 square feet of the space in the southernmost portion of the plaza. A remaining approximately 6,000 square feet of the former Stein Mart space will remain for another tenant.
“It’s a very good thing for Solon,” Mr. Frankland said. “We went for quite a while with having one outdated store, and now we’re getting a new Giant Eagle and hitting another segment of the market with Earth Fare.”
The project will be on the planning commission agenda Tuesday and before City Council the following week. Pending City Council’s approval, work on the building would begin immediately as the project is on a quick time frame, Mr. Frankland said.
Based in the southeast part of the country, Earth Fare is beginning to expand in this area. The store will serve as one of the primary, if not the primary, anchors for the Solon Square Shopping Center, he said.
Stein Mart, which entered the plaza in October 2007, closed in May.
The Earth Fare project would not require any variances at this point, Mr. Frankland said, although there may be a sign variance in the future. Plans are for a new vestibule on the front of the store, but the exterior of the store will stay the same expect for a new sign.
The most “controversial” part of the application, Mr. Frankland said, is an outdoor cart storage area. The city would prefer that inside the building and will suggest a masonry screening wall designed to look like a part of the building to block the view of the carts.
Plans also show outdoor cafe seating.
Mid-America Management Corp. came before the city’s planning commission recently with plans for facade alterations to modify the west wing of the existing building in an effort to update the plaza. That area has been vacant since the Tops store went out of business in 2005.
The proposal detailed three new storefronts that would be created immediately to the south of the former Stein Mart tenant space. It was tabled partly because that area of the building is on the south property line, which is the new Huntington Bank building, so an easement would be needed.
The commission also asked to see color samples of the brick that would be added to the building and expressed some concern that the proposed re-facade section of the plaza would not be compatible with the balance of the center.
The plans will not be on next week’s agenda, Mr. Frankland noted, due to the Earth Fare coming through.
“We want that southernmost renovation to tie in more elements with the existing plaza,” he said. “The Earth Fare elevation actually shows a Photoshop version of what the southern elevation will look like, and it looks much better than it did before.”
These plans will be submitted for the commission’s Aug. 28 meeting.
“Once they submit their application on the 28th, I think it will be approved,” Mr. Frankland said. “It ties in much better with the plaza than the previous proposal.”
The easement also remains unresolved, which is why the applicant is delaying to the 28th, he said.
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