GLEN CARBON - Orchard Town Center in Glen Carbon is making steady progress, according to Tim Lowe with The Staenberg Group, who gave a presentation at Tuesday’s Glen Carbon Village Board meeting to update trustees on where the project stands now. With the new Troy Road entrance to Chick-fil-A now open, he said Phase 1 is almost complete as the project transitions into Phase 2.
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Lowe said bringing “new-to-market” tenants to Glen Carbon was a key priority for the Orchard Town Center project.
“We stayed true to what we originally promised, which was new-to-market tenants,” Lowe said. “We didn’t want to recycle tenants, we didn’t want to move people around in Glen Carbon, we didn’t want to steal people from Edwardsville. These are all new-to-market tenants.”
He said the Orchard Town Center project was split up into two phases to accommodate the traffic in the area.
“Phase 1 had most of the traffic improvements to the north, along Governor’s Parkway [and] another section by Chick-fil-A,” Lowe said. “With those improvements, it allowed us to build four outlots and our anchor tenant.”
That “anchor tenant” is the Meijer grocery store, which has delayed their opening to coincide with their O’Fallon location so that they could have two stores open in the market, Lowe said. While an exact timeline was not yet known, he said he expects Meijer to open sometime within the next two years. He also gave updates on the four tenants that were secured during Phase 1.
“Chick-fil-A is open - they opened without the entrance next to them, they’re doing unbelievably well, [we’re] extremely happy,” Lowe said. “Olive Garden is opening either later this year or the beginning of January, depending on how their construction goes. Plaza Tire, which is under construction, [is] opening this fall, and then Club Car Wash … I believe they're planning to start sometime next year.”
Phase 1 also included work on the interior roadways, stormwater, and most recently, the Troy Road entrance to Chick-fil-A. With that entrance open, Lowe said they’re “relatively finished with Phase 1.”
A new pocket park is being built on the southern end of Orchard Town Center, near the area’s bike trail entrance. Lowe said the pocket park will make a great point of entry for local bike riders and will also feature a concrete platform for performances and other events.
Also on the south side of Orchard Town Center, a building which Lowe said could house one, two, or possibly three restaurants will be built with a rear deck area facing the new pocket park. Lowe said restaurant and pocket park visitors will be able to interact with each other, since the two areas face each other in close proximity.
Along with Dick’s Sporting Goods, Lowe said approximately 7,000 square feet of retail shop space will also be built and occupied by “smaller, local, boutique-y type tenants.” He said the entire southern outlot - including Dick’s, the pocket park, and the smaller local retail tenants - is expected to open by spring 2025.
Phase 2 traffic improvements are currently awaiting design approval. Lowe said that aside from two lots, they have tenants named for each lot, most of which are either sit-down restaurants or quick-serve restaurants. While more details about Phase 2 tenants were not yet available, he said every tenant he’s talked to so far has been a new-to-market tenant.
“We’re really happy with Orchard Town Center, I think it’s turned out really nice. Hopefully, you guys are pleased too,” Lowe said to the trustees. “Hopefully, everything we told you we were going to do, we did.”
A recording of the presentation and more from the Sept. 26 Village Board meeting is available at the top of this story or on the Village of Glen Carbon Facebook page.
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