The Courier-Journal - 12 October 2005
A Wal-Mart SuperCenter at the site of a long-closed bigg’s hypermart will anchor a planned renaissance of the moribund Middletown Station shopping center.
“This is a site I think everyone has recognized as a jewel waiting to be found,” says Kevin Flanery, president of Hagan Properties, the developer and property manager for the center owned by Middletown Partners.
The 60-acre site nestled between Shelbyville, English Station, and Aiken Roads, in the shadow of the Shelbyville Road-Snyder Freeway interchange, seems a natural location for a retail center.
Only recently, however, have the demographics ripened enough for the center to blossom, Flanery said.
“Anyone who has been around Louisville for the last 15 or 16 years when bigg’s was first built knows that this end of town has seen tremendous growth in population,” Flanery said.
Flanery said bigg’s and its European-inspired hypermarket concept, which anchored Middletown Station through the 1990s, probably arrived too early for its location.
Wal-Mart has refined the same concept and, with the benefit of a larger customer base, should thrive at the center, he said. A bigg’s remains in operation in Clarksville, but most of the chain’s stores are in the Cincinnati area.
“Wal-Mart plans, which remain subject to final corporate approval, call for it to purchase 20 acres of the center and occupy 200,000 square feet in a free-standing building.
To make room, about 300,000 square feet of the old bigg’s building will be razed, while the remaining 100,000 square feet will be outfitted with a new façade, Flanery said.
The Wal-Mart is expected to open next summer, possibly in time for the back-to-school rush, said Mark Sneed, Hagan’s senior retail developer.
Wal-Mart has 10 stores in Jefferson County, including five Supercenters and two neighborhood markets.
Sneed said the Wal-Mart should help attract other tenants.
Several buildings are being planned to accommodate expected demand, Flanery said.
A Burlington Coat Factory store is the center’s only retail tenant. A store manger referred questions to the company’s corporate offices, which did not return phone calls.
The redevelopment will occur in phases as demand warrants. Financing for the initial phase is in place, Flanery said.
“Wal-Mart will handle their own finances, and we’ll do the others as they come,” Flanery said.
Hagan Properties has overseen similar makeovers, including Shelbyville Road Plaza in St. Matthews. Flanery said anyone familiar with that center can visualize what’s in store for Middletown Station – except that the latter has nearly twice the acreage.
“We have somewhere near 40 acres of land outside of the Wal-Mart building, and this is one location in eastern Jefferson County that can accommodate large-format, specialty retailers,” Sneed said.
However, the revamped Middletown Station will have that same look and feel to it that Shelbyville Road Plaza has, Flanery said.
“Each one has its own personality,” he said. “You’re not going to pick those tenants up and bring them here, and vice versa, but you will have some commonality.”
Middletown Mayor J. Byron Chapman said he’s pleased not only to get the old bigg’s building occupied, but by the prospect of several hundred new jobs.
“It’s been kind of an eyesore for a while, but everybody has been working hard … to get it occupied,” Chapman said.
With such a large building empty for five years, Chapman said, there had been concern it would create a mushroom effect of business closings.
“We’re proud that we’ve been able to locate facilities like this on existing retail sites … and revitalize some of the smaller jurisdictions within Jefferson County,” Flanery said.