Sauer offers new details of apartment redevelopment plan for Midlothian shopping center

Sauer Properties has filed plans to build two apartment buildings at the Festival at Midlothian shopping center. The center’s big-box retail strip would be torn down as part of the project. (BizSense file)

After securing zoning approval about a year and half ago, a local real estate firm is taking another step forward in revamping a shopping center it owns in Chesterfield.

Sauer Properties recently filed plans to build a pair of four-story apartment buildings on the grounds of the Festival at Midlothian retail complex at 9700 Midlothian Turnpike.

Totaling more than 200 units, the apartment development will be called the Village at Bon Air and would rise on a site currently occupied by an empty big-box retail strip toward the rear of the shopping center and a portion of the center’s parking lot, according to a site plan dated March 7.

The apartments would consist of 102 one-bedroom units and 104 two-bedrooms units. Amenities planned for the complex include a small park, fitness center, pool and clubhouse, per the plans.

There would be nearly 650 parking spaces at the center after the project, and they would be a mixture of new and existing spots.

While the now-vacant retail strip that was formerly home to Stein Mart, Marshalls and A.C. Moore would be demolished to make way for the project, the plans filed in early March show that the center’s other two retail sections, where smaller stores operate, would remain. Tenants in those sections include Dollar Tree, clothing store Plato’s Closet and restaurant Padow’s Hams & Deli. The standalone building occupied by Olive Garden also wouldn’t be affected by the development plan.

Sauer plans to redevelop the center, which it owns, with more than 200 apartment units in two buildings. A portion of the center’s existing retail space would remain. (County documents)

Sauer successfully rezoned the property, formerly known as Stein Mart Festival, in August 2023. The Richmond-based landlord and development firm got approval for up to 350 apartments, which the company envisioned as being split across three buildings. At the time, one of the three proposed apartment buildings was slated to take the place of the retail strip where Plato’s Closet and other tenants are located, but that building doesn’t appear in the plans filed this year.

It wasn’t clear whether the recently filed site plan depicts an initial stage of development, or if the project’s scope had been narrowed. Other details about the project like anticipated cost and construction timeline were unavailable. Sauer declined to comment for this article.

Timmons Group is the project’s engineer.

Sauer has previously said the idea behind the project is to inject more activity into the roughly 183,000-square-foot shopping center. By the time the project was working through the county’s rezoning process, the center had lost two of three big-box retailers that occupied the main, 90,000-square-foot retail strip to be demolished as part of the project, and a Sauer representative said at the time the company was having trouble finding new tenants to occupy the spaces.

The March site plan says the center would have 84,000 square feet of retail space remaining after the construction of the apartments project.