Courier Journal - September 1st, 2000, by Martha Elson
Shelbyville Road Plaza is set to undergo a $16 million renovation and expansion that will feature a three-level Hawley-Cooke Booksellers, an expanded Disc Jockey Records with a café and several major new tenants, including Circuit City.
Hagan Development Co. announced detailed plans yesterday for the 34-acre St. Matthews shopping center, which Shelbyville Road Plaza LLC bought yesterday from Marc-shall Realty Co. The new owner has ties with Hagan.
Burlington Coat Factory will close its store in the plaza Monday and move to Middletown Station, and Circuit city will move from 143 Thierman Lane to a 34,000-square-foot space at the plaza.
Hagan partner Bento Seay said yesterday that the aim is to create a more comprehensive, upscale mix of tenants.
Among the new tenants will be a 28,000-square-foot Wild Oats natural and organic foods supermarket and deli. Ron Feldman, vice president for real estate, said the company has more than 110 stores in 22 states and Canada. He said Wild Oats thinks the Louisville area is underserved for natural foods, describing the population as “sophisticated, well-educated and upbeat.”
There will also be a 35,000-square-foot Linens N’ Things and a 5,000-square-foot Honey Baked Ham store, which will move in November from its current location across from Oxmoor Center.
Honey Baked spokesman Marc Spiros said plans call for new sit-down eating space. He said the move will improve parking and accessibility; the present site has no traffic light and only 12 parking spaces.
Hagan also is negotiating with two shoe retailers and a golf store, among others.
The Louisville-Jefferson County Planning Commission recommended approval of the plans for the plaza on May 1, and the St. Matthews city Council approved them May 23. A parking waiver was granted to have 1,483 spaces, 354 fewer than would normally be required.
The plan calls for demolishing the buildings in the center of the plaza – including Hawley-Cooke, Disc Jockey and Burlington – and extending the parking area through that section to an entrance off Bowling Boulevard. Work is scheduled to be finished by the spring of 2002.
Hawley-Cooke, which opened in the plaza in 1978 and moved to a new space in 1994, will move to an expanded 27,000-square-foot space at the site of the former Evans Furniture Store. Co-owner Audrey Schuetze said it will be a “totally, totally new, renovated exciting space.” The store will stay open at its current location until it moves to its new site in February, when demolition of the old store will begin.
Disc Jockey, is expected to be in its new site, in the former Allied Sporting Goods store, by November. It will have “sound domes” over booths in the café with a menu of music from which customers can make selections, said John Maglinger, communications manager at the company’s headquarters in Owensboro.
The lease of the U.S. Postal Service’s branch at the plaza expires next year. The branch has been soliciting bids for a new site, but Seay said he hopes the revamped plaza can keep the post office.
Louisville Postmaster Bob Lochhead said yesterday hat he didn’t know whether there would be space for the post office in the renovated plaza and expects leasing costs to rise. So the Postal Service is “pursuing all avenues,” he said.