New development coming to North Columbus

A commercial development that will include a new Keller Williams real-estate office, a corporate headquarters for Childcare Network and a Southern States Bank branch is planned for 6059 Veterans Parkway in north Columbus.

There also will be small strip shopping center on the nearly 5-acre tract, with Dunkin Donuts already interested in the site. The land fronts a four-story office building occupied by Strayer University and North Veterans Executive Center. The entire property, including the current office structure, is just over 12 acres.

Jack Hayes, a broker with KW Commercial and developer of the new project, said a brief ground-breaking event is scheduled for Wednesday morning, with site work starting fully within three weeks and ramping up from there.

"It's going to be a mixed-use development," he said. "It's a unique project in the sense that it's three companies coming together and saying we all want to be on the site and work together."

Construction will begin first on the Childcare Network corporate headquarters, which will be toward the back of the property being developed. The 11,000-square-foot building will replace the Columbus-based company's nearly 9,500-square-foot office on 13th Street in the midtown area.

"We've been in our current location since 2002," said Chris Smith, chief financial officer of Childcare Network. "Our company has grown over that time frame, and we're really out of space. So we began looking around town over a year

ago. There's not that many properties of the size we were looking for."

Childcare Network was launched in 1988 and is now up to 211 child development centers -- the company calls them schools -- in 11 states.

That includes the recent purchase of four facilities in Lexington, Ky. There are about a dozen locations in Columbus and Phenix City.

The entire staff of nearly 45 people will be relocated to the new headquarters when it opens in early 2016, Smith said. That includes senior management, accounting, human resources, information technology and marketing.

"We participate in the USDA food program for many of our schools, so we have a food staff," he said. "We also have an enrollment services team, which is our call center, and we're booking all parent tours through the call center. So we're going to move everybody together."

Southern States Bank, founded in Anniston, Ala., in 2007, has been in Columbus for nine months, with a temporary full-service office inside North Veterans Executive Center, said Brad Arnold, market president for the community bank.

"It's just part of the plan for Southern States Bank, to continue to grow," said Arnold, a former Wells Fargo Bank executive in Columbus. "They were excited to get into the Columbus market and part of that growth is to have a full-service stand-alone branch."

He said the current staff of four full-time employees will rise to 12 with the new branch when its opens with drive-thru service, perhaps by summer 2016.

That will add to Southern States' presence in the Alabama cities of Anniston, Auburn, Opelika, Birmingham, Huntsville and Sylacauga.

It also is opening a branch in Carrollton, Ga., with more Peach State locations planned, Arnold said.

"Right now we're focused on the first one, but we're definitely keeping our eyes open for a second location in Columbus," he said.

Hayes said the new Keller Williams Realty River Cities building, just under 16,000 square feet, will replace the outdated 10,000-square-foot office the company now occupies at 5700 Veterans Parkway.

The new space is expected to open by December 2016.

Keller Williams Team Leader Skip Henderson, who's also on Columbus Council, said the new and improved surroundings will be "awesome" for the growing real-estate firm that has more than 80 agents.

KW Commercial itself has seven full-time agents and support staff. The local company is affiliated with the real-estate corporation based in Austin, Texas.

"We're going to be near a couple of other retail businesses there that are going to help with walk-in traffic," he said. "Plus, we've got a little functional obsolescence where we are and we're looking to make better use of our space."

Hayes said the free-standing retail center will be about 10,000 square feet, with room for six tenants.

Dunkin Donuts is interested in an end cap to give it a drive-thru lane and window, he said.

Strayer University, a for-profit college, has occupied the current 34,850-square-foot office building since 2010.

Before that, Beacon University operated there. Even further back, Callaway Chemical once did business from the complex that was built in 1984 and expanded in 2001.

As Strayer entered the picture five years ago, about $1 million in renovations were done on the property, Hayes said.

North Veterans Executive Center was opened in the building more than two years ago and has about 30 tenants there now.

"Folks come in and pay like $500 a month and we provide all of the utilities, Internet connections, package receipt, a full business center and conference room," Hayes said. "If you've heard of Regus office suites in Atlanta, this is sort of our version of that."

This story was originally published May 18, 2015 at 9:56 PM with the headline "New development coming to North Columbus ."