Cracker Barrel not an option to fill large hole at Cross Country Plaza
The relocation of off-price name-brand retailer Tuesday Morning, combined with the recent closure of William’s Hair Salon and last December’s exit by Mexican restaurant El Vaquero, is leaving a 20,000-square-foot hole at Cross Country Plaza that will need to be filled.
Property manager Vickie Smith said Wednesday that there are a couple of possibilities for the soon-to-be-empty building on what is known as “Cross Country on the Hill.”
But she definitively ruled out recent speculation that a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store and restaurant could land there. It’s not that Atlanta-based Coro Realty, which owns the Macon Road shopping center, didn’t try to snag the popular down-home restaurant chain that is more accustomed to setting up shop off interstate exits.
“We did propose it to Cracker Barrel,” Smith said. “That would mean tearing the (existing) building down and constructing a spot for Cracker Barrel. We would love for that to happen. But they basically said to us that this is a one-location town and they’re not looking to expand here.”
Lebanon, Tenn.-based Cracker Barrel has been operating a 280-seat restaurant at 1500 Bradley Park Drive in Columbus since 2003.
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What is concrete at Cross Country Plaza is the move of Tuesday Morning from its current 10,000-square-foot spot on the hill to nearly 15,000 square feet of space on the lower level of the city’s oldest shopping center. The shopping development dates to 1957.
“They’re moving down in the corner in between Sally Beauty and Foot Locker” Smith said. “They’ll be open the middle of October down there.”
There also is the matter of filling the former Deorio’s Italian restaurant space that shut its doors at mid-June after a 55-year run at the shopping center. That closure rippled through the hearts of faithful Deorio’s fans who grew up eating there.
“We’re working on that Deorio’s space,” Smith said. “They were there for 55 years, so we know we’ve got to go in there and do some things and bring everything up to code. We do have a couple of people interested in it and we’re negotiating with them now.”
William’s Hair Salon, a full-service shop, had been open nearly as long.
“They’ve been in the center since 1969, and we really hated to lose them,” the manager said. “But it was an economic decision on their part.”
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Aside from a couple of other small storefront vacancies on the lower level, the large building on the hill being vacated by Tuesday Morning is the biggest piece of the puzzle for the center at the moment. Smith said it’s not likely that it will be razed to the ground for complete redevelopment.
“We’ve got a couple of different things working. Nothing is signed and completely in order yet,” she said. “It’s probably going to be the middle or end of September before we know exactly what we’re going to do. We do have a couple of leases that are pending that we’re just sort of holding back on now until we make a decision on what we’re going to do there.”
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Could Cross Country Plaza land a well-known restaurant chain at some point, even if it’s not along the lines of a Cracker Barrel store?
“Absolutely,” the manager said. “We have talked to many national restaurants about going up there, and right now that is just not happening. That could change tomorrow, because my leasing people in Atlanta are connected to other real-estate agents that represent those big guys.”
This story was originally published August 24, 2017 at 5:34 PM with the headline "Cracker Barrel not an option to fill large hole at Cross Country Plaza."