Sauer Properties is planning to build 350 apartments at its shopping center formerly called Stein Mart Festival. Portions of the existing retail development would be demolished to make way for the residential project. (BizSense file)
Sauer Properties now has the approval needed to revamp a retail center it owns on Midlothian Turnpike.
The Chesterfield Board of Supervisors voted Wednesday to approve a rezoning request by the Richmond-based landlord and developer to add several hundred apartments to the shopping center formerly known as Stein Mart Festival on Midlothian Turnpike near Robious Road.
The project comes as a bid by Sauer to inject more life into a center that has struggled to fill its retail anchor storefronts. Building 350 apartments there would introduce a residential component and transform the center into a mixed-use development.
Supervisor Mark Miller, who represents the area where the shopping center is located, said he felt the proposal was a good strategy amid shifts in the retail sector.
“Retail has fundamentally changed over the last three or four years, and (the Stein Mart has been) closed a period of years and it’s not coming back. As a result, we need to be creative in what we’re going to do there,” Miller said.
The apartments would rise in three, four-story buildings planned to be built in phases over time.
The first apartment building planned to be built would be constructed where a mostly empty 90,000-square-foot retail strip stands at the rear of the center. That retail strip was formerly home to a Stein Mart as well as a now-closed A.C. Moore. The sole long-term tenant in the strip is a Marshalls department store.
One of the later apartment buildings would rise on a portion of the center’s parking lot, while the other is slated to take the place of a row of small storefronts near the center’s T-Mobile location. Part of that retail strip would be reconfigured to house a leasing center for the apartments.
Among the center’s other tenants are Padow’s Hams & Deli, Olive Garden, Dollar Tree, clothing store Plato’s Closet and music store Music & Arts.
At the project’s final phase, the now approximately 183,000-square-foot center would see its retail footprint trimmed to about 67,500 square feet, based on the center’s leasing flyer.
The project would see the creation of a “village green” area that would replace a portion of the center’s parking lot and which would “serve as open space and a site amenity for the entire mixed-use development,” according to a staff report.
In addition to the new greenspace, the project would include new pedestrian walkways and improvements to retail storefronts slated to remain.
The apartment complex’s amenities would include a pool, dog park, clubhouse and fitness center. Residents and shoppers would share surface parking.
A date hasn’t been set for the start of construction. It is dependent on how long the Marshalls store wants to continue its extendable lease, Marshall French said Wednesday morning. He is Sauer’s director of real estate development and construction.
French declined to share the anticipated cost of the construction project. He said Sauer hasn’t selected a general contractor or architecture firm for the project yet.
The apartments are anticipated to be “workforce” housing, French has previously told BizSense. A proffered condition of the project is that no more than 10 percent of the total apartments have three bedrooms. The project also would feature one- and two-bedroom units.
Sauer Properties is planning to build 350 apartments at its shopping center formerly called Stein Mart Festival. Portions of the existing retail development would be demolished to make way for the residential project. (BizSense file)
Sauer Properties now has the approval needed to revamp a retail center it owns on Midlothian Turnpike.
The Chesterfield Board of Supervisors voted Wednesday to approve a rezoning request by the Richmond-based landlord and developer to add several hundred apartments to the shopping center formerly known as Stein Mart Festival on Midlothian Turnpike near Robious Road.
The project comes as a bid by Sauer to inject more life into a center that has struggled to fill its retail anchor storefronts. Building 350 apartments there would introduce a residential component and transform the center into a mixed-use development.
Supervisor Mark Miller, who represents the area where the shopping center is located, said he felt the proposal was a good strategy amid shifts in the retail sector.
“Retail has fundamentally changed over the last three or four years, and (the Stein Mart has been) closed a period of years and it’s not coming back. As a result, we need to be creative in what we’re going to do there,” Miller said.
The apartments would rise in three, four-story buildings planned to be built in phases over time.
The first apartment building planned to be built would be constructed where a mostly empty 90,000-square-foot retail strip stands at the rear of the center. That retail strip was formerly home to a Stein Mart as well as a now-closed A.C. Moore. The sole long-term tenant in the strip is a Marshalls department store.
One of the later apartment buildings would rise on a portion of the center’s parking lot, while the other is slated to take the place of a row of small storefronts near the center’s T-Mobile location. Part of that retail strip would be reconfigured to house a leasing center for the apartments.
Among the center’s other tenants are Padow’s Hams & Deli, Olive Garden, Dollar Tree, clothing store Plato’s Closet and music store Music & Arts.
At the project’s final phase, the now approximately 183,000-square-foot center would see its retail footprint trimmed to about 67,500 square feet, based on the center’s leasing flyer.
The project would see the creation of a “village green” area that would replace a portion of the center’s parking lot and which would “serve as open space and a site amenity for the entire mixed-use development,” according to a staff report.
In addition to the new greenspace, the project would include new pedestrian walkways and improvements to retail storefronts slated to remain.
The apartment complex’s amenities would include a pool, dog park, clubhouse and fitness center. Residents and shoppers would share surface parking.
A date hasn’t been set for the start of construction. It is dependent on how long the Marshalls store wants to continue its extendable lease, Marshall French said Wednesday morning. He is Sauer’s director of real estate development and construction.
French declined to share the anticipated cost of the construction project. He said Sauer hasn’t selected a general contractor or architecture firm for the project yet.
The apartments are anticipated to be “workforce” housing, French has previously told BizSense. A proffered condition of the project is that no more than 10 percent of the total apartments have three bedrooms. The project also would feature one- and two-bedroom units.
For all you developers/real estate readers, what is the definition of “workforce” housing? Also, what is the reasoning behind reducing the # of bedrooms within the available units? Reduce the # of cars?, reduce the # of tenants with children? So who would need the “village green”??? It looks to me like the “village green” is just a place holder for future building. And wouldn’t the pool be by the green space if the green space was permanent?
Housing options that are affordable to a region’s essential workforce and workers in the region’s large and growing industries.
https://housingforwardva.org/toolkits/workforce-housing-toolkit/
Unless anyone disagrees with that.
So it is a euphemism for subsidized housing?
Workforce housing is not subsidized housing. It is housing that consumes approximately 50% or less of the monthly gross income for those making 60-80% of area median income. Think service industry workers, essential service workers, city/county/state employees, etc. It’s a huge component of most metro areas around the US. We need more workforce housing and less luxury 1-2 bedroom apartments!
So you are telling me that the owner of these apartments is going to make less income (purposefully) because their rents are lower due to only renting to workforce tenants that make less money than “luxury” renters?
Again, this does not make sense unless someone (government) is subsidizing / incentivizing apartment owners to rent for less.
I think I am still missing something…..???
My GUESS is that the location is not prime enough for high end rents. Who wants to live right on Rt 60 in an old Stein Mart site? It’s likely quieter living on Broad St. at night.
Not sure. I know a guy who was in an elected position of a rather exclusive NJ town that was fighting to get some low income housing built that needed some subsidies and there was opposition. He told the opponents that it was not like it would house “the kinds of people we don’t want here” and the social media mob went crazy, saying he was racist (which is quite ironic if you know him — he lived in NoVa when I first met him and only lived there because his wife was a medical resident at Georgetown and would… Read more »
If a developer is Low Income Tax Credit that IS subsidized affordable housing. But I think they just did a proffer to put in 3-bedrooms so families of working parents have rental options for spaces with kids. And in the today’s environment most places do encircle the pool to limit access. It would not be in an open space close to a parking lot. Is the open/community space also proffered???
Yeah, okay, did the article say there were tax credits? Don’t read that as challenging, just too lazy to read the article again right now.
I am a fan of courtyards/hinterhofs and when I lived in Berlin I loved discovering them —- you can see them from the air, but you often have no idea that a building or group of buildings has one — and even if it is an old tenement they have a really peaceful and exclusive feel to them.
Good – that whole area needs to be spruced up. If you look at the otherside less than 5 minutes away you have Trader Joes, Planet Fitness, Gelati Celesti, a natural grocer. The difference? Richmond line. Chesterfield needs to step it up!
Huh? If you are saying that Bon Aire is a nicer area than Midlo Tpke, I am not sure that is something anyone would disagree with. But if you are trying to say that the Richmond side is nicer, I am not sure you have drove the length of I60. Midlothian Tpke IS getting nicer, or at least more interesting. Culturally, an interesting cross-pollenization of Latin American and Asian immigrants has been cooking up in a melting pot kind of way. Chesterfield Town Center I think looked like it might join the list of dead malls but that certainly doesn’t… Read more »
Victoria: Apartment developers keep 3-bedroom units to a minimum, or not at all, for several reasons. First and foremost is that you can get more 1- and 2-bedroom units, if you eliminate 3-bedroom units. That helps the bottom line. A second reason is that people that would need a 3-bedroom unit are most often looking to buy a house. They have simply outgrown apartment living, and the cost of renting a 3-bedroomunit, if you can find one, helps in that decision making process.
So right Brian. I see it as workforce to add in more 3-bedrooms than most developers would include in that it allows working parents rentable units with bedrooms for their kids. Most times if you have 2-3 kid (especially different ages/sex) you can’t do an apartment have to rent a home. And those looking for to move to the a home might have to rent for a while before they can find that right place and win a bid.
So you are saying that the apartment owners are the ones saying that they will only incorporate less than 10% of the units to 3 bedroom – and that definitely makes financial sense. Thanks Brian!
The apartment building at the rear of the property backs up to that trailer park. Those folks get rowdy!
I love that hole-in-the-wall Marshall’s. Just don’t move it all the way down Midlothian. It’s the closest one between Midlothian and Hopkins without having to fight down 360 or 60.