New center almost complete, will have restaurant, dental office, wireless phone store
A new shopping center at 3732 U.S. Hwy. 280 in Phenix City is nearly complete, with a restaurant, wireless phone store and dental office preparing to move in.
"Aspen Dental is scheduled to open July 2. Moe’s is still going into the center and T-Mobile is the confirmed final tenant," Jaime Luckey, marketing director with Halpern Entreprises, said via email.
She said dates for the openings of Moe's and T-Mobile have yet to be set.
Halpern is the Atlanta-based real-estate company that has redeveloped the 7,100-square-foot center that is near the Walmart Supercenter in Phenix City, located between a Synovus Bank branch and Vance Memorial Chapel.
Redevelopment of the center began in March, with Aspen Dental and Moe's Southwest Grill confirmed tenants off the bat, while there was speculation an AT&T wireless store would be the third tenant. Neither AT&T nor T-Mobile have a retail store in Phenix City, while a Verizon Wireless outlet is located across U.S. Hwy. 80, adjacent to a McDonald's fast-food joint.
This apparently will be the first of two Moe's eateries in Phenix City, with a second one expected to locate in a larger shopping center now slowly coming out of the ground on U.S. Hwy. 431 in south Phenix City. That development is being anchored by a Renfroe's Market, which is a small Alabama supermarket company.
Moe’s Southwest Grill is an Atlanta-based fast-casual restaurant with a menu that includes burritos, tacos, quesadillas, nachos and “bowls” of food. It has grown to nearly 700 locations in the U.S., including two in Columbus.
Aspen Dental is a Syracuse, N.Y.-based company that acts as a support organization for contracted dental practices that use the Aspen Dental brand. It already has a location on Veterans Parkway in north Columbus.
T-Mobile is a Bonn, Germany-based firm that is the third-largest wireless carrier in the U.S. behind Verizon and AT&T. In late April, it announced a merger with Sprint Corp. that would pull it closer to its two competitors in market share, with the deal still needing regulatory approval.
Data listed on Halpern Enterprises' website indicates the population within a 15-minute drive to the new Phenix City shopping center is more than 153,000, which includes nearly 62,000 households and average annual household income of $62,826.
Roadwork in front of the new center at 3732 U.S. Hwy. 280 includes an extension of South Railroad Street that is parallel to the highway up to the parking lot of Vance Memorial Chapel. The street currently ends in front of the former CB&T of East Alabama bank branch, which now carries the Synovus brand.
This story was originally published June 25, 2018 at 12:38 PM with the headline "New center almost complete, will have restaurant, dental office, wireless phone store."