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Staff
Photo/ANTHONY WEBER A worker is silhouetted as
construction progress continues on the Park Corner South
complex on Experiment Farm Road and Towne Park Drive.
Businesses choose
Towne Park Drive
Bistro, Coldstone coming;Comfort Suites planned
By
Ron Osburn
Staff Writer
Two new developments are taking place at either end of
Towne Park Drive on the city's west side.
Coldstone
Creamery, a specialty ice cream store, and a New Orleans
Bistro restaurant will anchor the new Park Corner South
strip center under construction at the southeast corner
of Experiment Farm Road and Towne Park Drive.
At the
other end of Towne Park Drive, developer Alex Koldesh of
Singer Properties said last week he has a signed a
purchase agreement for a 64-unit Comfort Suites motel,
to be located on a two-acre site behind the Wal-Mart
store and across from Outback Steakhouse.
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Developer Alex Kolodesh stands in front of Park
Corner South, a three-unit strip center under
construction at the southeast corner of
Experiment Farm Road and Towne Park Drive. Two
confirmed tenants for the building include
Coldstone Creamery, a specialty ice cream shop,
and a New Orleans Bistro restaurant. |
Both
developments are located within the rapidly developing
66-acre Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district, which is
located along Town Park Drive, between Experiment Farm
Road and West Main Street.
Kolodesh said the
10,000-square-foot Park Corner South building represents
a $1.5 million investment, and along with Park Corner
North, its companion building across the street, will
form an attractive, upscale entryway to the TIF district
along Town Park Drive.
He said both Coldstone and New Orleans Bistro could be
open early next spring. The balance of the building's
space, about 2,000-square-feet, is being set aside for
an additional tenant.
Kolodesh called Park Corner South
"a modernized version of Park Corner North, featuring
stainless steel accents, a large front patio accented by
a fountain, an outdoor sound system and decorative
awnings and landscaping."
"We want to blow away anything
else you'll see around here," Kolodesh said.
Kolodesh
said he's also excited about the esthetics of the
Comfort Suites motel, saying it will feature a façade of
decorative brick, which compliments the decorative brick
sidewalks along Towne Park Drive.
"It's going to be a
nice-looking hotel for corporate and professional types
who are in Troy (on business)," he said.
The $3.5
million Comfort Suites project could begin breaking
ground later this year for an opening some time in 2008, Kolodesh said.
With the new developments, more than half
the acreage in Troy's TIF is developed, Kolodesh said.
"We anticipated a five-to-seven-year build out, so we're on schedule, maybe even a little ahead of
schedule," Kolodesh said.
TIFs are an increasingly
popular method of publicly financing infrastructure
within a specified land area in order to spur private
development. Under terms of the 2003 TIF agreement
between Troy and property owner and developer Singer
Properties, the city agreed to finance a 30-year, $1.8
million bond to pay for development of Town Park Drive
and associated infrastructure, including utilities and
decorative lighting and red brick sidewalk.
The TIF
district includes the Town Park shopping center and
about 20 other development sites - some filled, some
still vacant - but does not include the Towne Park
Apartment complex on Town Park Drive. |
