Restaurants and retailers to join Renfroe’s supermarket at new shopping center

After a few months of clearing the 22 acres upon which it will sit, The Village at Crosswinds shopping center — which will be anchored by a large supermarket — is poised to pick up steam on construction.

The development, located off U.S. Hwy. 431 in Phenix City, near the intersection of Alabama 165 and Chattahoochee Valley Community College, will now begin its push toward a targeted opening in early 2019.

“Assuming we don’t run into any unforeseen issues, I would say sometime in the first quarter of next year would be a good time to say that we would turn it over to Renfroe’s for them to do their work and then open,” said Richard Mobley, the commercial broker working with the developer to line up tenants for the property. “Things are about to be hopping out there in the next few weeks.”

Montgomery, Ala.-based Renfroe’s Market is the 40,000-square-foot supermarket tenant that will anchor the center that also will have about 26,000 square feet of inline retail space, as well as several outparcels.

Mobley, affiliated with Bickerstaff Parham Real Estate, said the grocery store will be the new prototype for Renfroe’s, which has two locations in Montgomery and one in Dadeville, Ala. The website, The Daily Meal, has rated Renfroe’s the best grocery store in Alabama for 2018 as part of its feature on each state’s top supermarket.

“A longtime Montgomery institution, Renfroe’s Market focuses on giving value to every customer’s dollar,” a synopsis said. “As one reviewer put it, ‘Kind of like Walmart and Publix in 1. Layout and selection of Publix but prices like Wal-Mart! Great grocery store!’”

Aside from Renfroe’s, the only other tenant confirmed by Mobley for the shopping center is Marco’s Pizza. Steve Smith, deputy city manager with Phenix City, said Moe’s Southwest Grill also plans to locate at the site. Moe’s is closing in on a new location as well in front of the Walmart Supercenter in Phenix City as part of another project.

“They’re going in there and they’re also going in at the location on 431,” Smith said. “Those are pretty far apart in terms of the areas that they’ll serve.”

Mobley said The Village at Crosswinds has received several letters of intent from restaurants and retailers interested in being at the shopping center. Food establishments wanting to be involved include both full-service restaurants and fast-food operators.

Other possibilities include a barber shop, a nail salon and possibly a dentist and urgent care center. Fronting the property will be the fast-food outlets, as well as a convenience store and gas station that Mobley hopes to sign an agreement with fairly soon.

“We’re trying to make it a destination location for people out in that area,” said Mobley, who pointed out that one element of the interest from businesses desiring to be a part of The Village at Crosswinds is the fact that it sits on the U.S. 431 vacation pipeline to and from the Florida Gulf Coast and cities such as Destin and Panama City Beach.

“As far as traffic headed down to Florida, absolutely,” he said of the corridor that averages about 29,000 vehicles per day, but spikes at key times of the year, including holidays and in the summer. “That’s where we’re getting the most interest is due to the traffic headed from Atlanta to Florida.”

While The Village at Crosswinds will certainly be a draw for travelers and residents in the Phenix City and Russell County area, including nearby Fort Mitchell, Ala., Mobley conceded there could be some shoppers from Georgia — particularly from the downtown area and Fort Benning — doing business at the shopping center and its variety of food and retail tenants. Downtown Columbus is less than 10 minutes from the center.

Dallas, Texas-based Altera Development and Birmingham, Ala.-based eds America — the latter entity’s name is short for “economic development strategies of America” — are working together on the project with assistance from Phenix City.

The city’s council approved an ordinance last March to purchase $2.8 million in bonds to help with the building for Montgomery, Ala.-based Renfroe’s Market. The developers are to construct the building’s shell and lease it to the city, which in turn will provide heating and air conditioning, as well as refrigeration equipment for the supermarket. Renfroe’s Market then will lease the space from Phenix City.

Phenix City’s financial department has projected the supermarket alone will generate as much as $500,000 annually in sales tax revenue, while paying the city $276,000 each year to lease the building. As tenants are added to the property, the sales tax revenue number, naturally, will grow.

“Phenix City is a tremendous community that at times has been overshadowed by its sister city in Columbus,” Altera’s Chief Executive Officer Terry Quinn said in January as the development was announced. “But we have found that the people of Phenix City are proud in their own right and want to support Alabama businesses in Alabama, and wanted a new mixed-use retail development to help continue the growth along this corridor of Highway 431.”

Getting to the current moment in the project’s early life has taken time for several reasons, said Smith, who also is Phenix City’s utilities director. There were some initial problems with civil engineering, with a small area of wetlands in the corner of the property causing a short delay.

“It takes about 90 days to go through the process with the federal government to get that permitted properly,” he said. “That has slowed the process up in terms of getting the development done. But they’re working as quickly as they can. There’s about 200,000 cubic yards of dirt that have to be moved on that property.”

There also needed to be approval from the Alabama Department of Transportation for a traffic signal to be installed at the shopping center, he said, while the developers have also sought a non-signalized entrance and exit to the shopping center.

Mobley said vertical construction of The Village at Crosswinds should begin in about two months or so. The layout of the center will have a tiered format, he said, with the outparcels lower on the front of the property and the supermarket and the inline retail spaces sitting a little higher on the property.

“It will have great visibility from the highway there,” he said.

The Village at Crosswinds should impress residents when it’s all said and done, Smith said. It certainly will be the newest large shopping center in the Phenix City area.

“It will be one of the nicer commercial developments in the area once they get it built,” he said.

This story was originally published May 12, 2018 at 8:49 AM with the headline "Restaurants and retailers to join Renfroe’s supermarket at new shopping center."