© 2024 a la mode intimates All rights reserved.
0 items in the shopping cart
The new Main Street? The impact of the Annapolis Towne Centre
CapitalGazette.com Posted: Tuesday, July 23, 2013 11:45 pm | Updated: 8:28 am, Thu Jul 25, 2013.
By SARA BLUMBERG sblumberg@capgaznews.com
When Kelley Heuisler was looking to expand her shoe store from Baltimore to Annapolis, she spent a long time scouting locations.
Heuisler considered opening a Poppy and Stella near the waterfront in downtown Annapolis. There were other boutiques there, but she had reservations about the high rent and limited parking.
“There also seemed to be a high turnover rate for retail,” she said. “That was another factor.”
So when the developers of Annapolis Towne Centre at Parole reached out to her, hoping to attract independent shop owners, she signed on.
Three years later, Heuisler has a successful business and a dedicated following.
She wasn’t alone in deciding to bet on the massive mix of shops, restaurants, offices and homes that opened just outside the Annapolis city limits in October 2008. The development has also drawn shops already established in downtown Annapolis, such as A la Mode Intimates and the Horse Boutique.
Five years after it opened, Annapolis Towne Centre is about to expand again, with another apartment complex and more retail. The retail pattern will seem familiar — once again the development will bring in some names new to the area but also attract familiar businesses moving from nearby.
Developers say the center is well on the way to fulfilling its original promise: a main street-style destination that attracts both local shoppers interested in sales at Target or dinner at Brio Tuscan Grille, and young adults who want the lifestyle featured in the project’s advertisements — somewhere they can eat, shop and live.
For many area residents, Annapolis Towne Centre is the new main street.
“It’s simple,” said Steven DuQuette, president of DuQuette Properties. “Residents shop at the Towne Centre, while tourists go downtown.”
After Annapolis Towne Centre opened to much fanfare, DuQuette helped sell the luxury condominiums at GrandView at Annapolis Towne Centre at Parole.
At the start of a recession caused by collapsing real estate and mortgage sectors, housing units going for $500,000 to $2 million proved a tough sell. Prices came down to $400,000; the developers used auctions to keep sales going.
Today, all 150 units have been sold, with units being resold for as much as $1.2 million, DuQuette said.
“Now we are in an upswing,” he said.
Fred Paone, R-Ward 2, was elected to the City Council just as the center opened. The center, Paone said, has hurt Annapolis’ actual Main Street, the brick-paved thoroughfare at the center of the city’s Historic District.
“I’ve seen the businesses leave here and head up there,” he said. “It’s our job to remain engaged, so that shops thrive down here.”
The new project’s attraction for business owners, Paone said, are a single landlord and more space. The downtown has a mix of historic buildings owned by an many different people.
Paone is the chairman of the council’s Economic Matters Committee. He said that while he understands that the free market is based on competition, he doesn’t want the downtown to lose its appeal as businesses migrate from the center of town to the Towne Centre.
“It’s important for businesses to grow and not leave,” he said. “We are engaged in making this happen.”
The attraction
Target, Whole Foods and Bed, Bath and Beyond are all big draws for shoppers at Towne Centre. National chains, including Anthropolgie and Brooks Brothers, are mixed in with smaller shops such as Poppy and Stella.
A range of bars and restaurants, from high end to frozen yogurt places, rounds out the retail offerings. Banks, lawyers, financial planners and others occupy the commercial office space.
Owen and Janice Adams live just a few minutes by car from the Towne Centre. If they decide to go there for a run, it’s three miles. They’ve lived in the area since 2000 and are at the Towne Centre a few times a week.
“We come here for date night every Friday,” Janice said. “It always ends with a trip to Target.”
On Friday, the young couple were enjoying yogurt and the weekly free concert put on by the management company.
They also had their dog Autumn with them.
“Like us, we see a lot of people here with their dogs, it’s nice to see a facility cater to them,” Owen said.
Elizabeth Dicey had the same idea. Sitting on a blanket, the Annapolis woman and her 11-month-old son, Cameron, enjoyed the music.
“We come here specifically for the music. I have a 3-year-old, and she loves to dance,” she said.
Steve Strazzella, president of Bozzuto Development Co., which leases the apartment facilities at the complex, said the concept of an all-inclusive lifestyle community has been successful with both younger and “baby boomer” county residents.
The Mariner Bay at Annapolis Towne Centre, developed by Bozzuto, currently has a 90 percent occupancy rate. The apartment complex now nearing completion, the Crosswinds, has already leased 15 percent of its units.
Strazzella expects all the units to be leased by the time the complex opens in September.
“We haven’t invented anything new,” he said. “We are reintroducing an old concept of a walkable neighborhood in a suburban setting. Our tenants are embracing it again.”
But it hasn’t played out exactly as originally planned.
When Greenberg Gibbons Commercial Corp. proposed the massive multimillion-dollar project, it was intended as a long-awaited redevelopment of Parole Plaza. The 1960s-era shopping center had once posed a similar challenge to downtown businesses, only later to fall to competition with what is now Westfield Annapolis mall.
Tenants left and the property went bankrupt before Greenberg Gibbons bought the site and demolished the dated buildings.
The developer’s initial proposal called for more retail space and more more housing. A national housing crash and conflicts in implementing the project led to the plan being scaled back.
So far, the Towne Centre has drawn a mix of young singles and older residents looking to return to a more “walkable” community, Strazzella said.
Crosswinds, in a move to attract a more youthful population, will feature more one-bedroom apartments.
“After Mariner Bay opened, we realized we needed smaller units,” Strazzella said. “We made sure to do that this time around.”
View from downtown
Not everyone sees the Towne Centre as a competitor to downtown Annapolis. Dennis Murphy sees it as a complement.
“What it appears to do in the Annapolis area is capture a main-street, small-town atmosphere,” said Murphy, owner of Murphy Commercial Real Estate. “We have so much to offer in downtown Annapolis, with the water and the dock front, that it’s a different environment.
The Towne Centre “has expanded the area in terms of choice of offering restaurants and stores,” he said.
Laura Fritts, president of the Annapolis Economic Development Corp., said the city’s commercial heart and Annapolis Towne Centre serve different markets.
“Downtown Annapolis is lucky to have residents and tourists,” she said. “We have found that novelty stores that aren’t found many places are thriving, especially for visitors interested in shopping.”
Fritts said that even when there is turnover among businesses, the spaces are rented quickly.
But it was that turnover that worried Heuisler. She wanted a business that would last more than a few years.
“I saw a few shops come and go,” she said. “It was something that I was concerned about.”
The development agency, along with the City Council, is working on legislation to help downtown shop owners expand their businesses.
In April, Mayor Josh Cohen introduced legislation to spread the payment of the capital facilities fee over three years. The lump sum for water and sewer charges is assessed on new and expanding businesses in Annapolis.
The idea of spreading out the payment is to help area businesses compete with with national chains.
The council plans to vote on the legislation Monday.
Heuisler, now established at the Towne Centre, said she would consider a move downtown in the future.
“I still think it would be a good fit,” she said. “It’s something I plan to explore down the road.”
Comments (0)
Please login to Comment
Please Sign In