A pair of warehouse buildings in Italian Village will be reborn next summer as a retail hub for small businesses when local developers at Capitol Equities completes a full renovation planned for the site. Located at 995 North Fourth Street, the property takes up the entire block between Fourth Street, Third Avenue, Hamlet Street and Punta Alley.
“We’re happy to be renovating and preserving the existing buildings there, as it will add character to this development,” said Capitol Equities Principle Todd Kemmerer. “The presentation of the existing buildings should be keeping in line with Seventh Son and Fox in the Snow — it should be a nice development when all is done.”
Since the project is a renovation and not new construction, the turnaround time is slated to be quick. Kemmerer expects to start construction around March 1st with spaces available for tenants by July 1st. He said that the retail mix should include two restaurant anchors and five other smaller offices or storefronts.
“We’ve got a short list of people who have already showed interest,” added Kemmerer. “Some of them are existing retailers — destinations and service-based business — who are located on High Street and are calling us because they suffer from the lack of parking in the Short North.”
The parking configuration of the site was something that Capitol Equities and the Italian Village Commission fought over earlier this year. In March, Commission members took issue with the proposed conversion of the back half of the site into an additional parking lot. The lot ended up gaining approval in July, although a parking variance approved this week brought the total number of spots down from 100 to 60.
“We stuck to our guns because I want to park as many cars as we can without pushing cars from our retailers out into the streets of the neighborhood,” explained Kemmerer. “I think we found the right balance.”
In addition to cars, Kemmerer added that there will be parking spots designated for bikes, scooters and motorcycles, with landscaping and screening planned for both the front and back lots.
More information will be announced soon on the first tenants for the new retail development.
All renderings via Architectural Alliance.
