Planning begins for KP Villages/Junction retail
With the apartment segment of Kingston Pike Villages nearing completion, developers for Kingston Pike/Farragut Junction — at Dixie Lee Junction — now are focusing on the retail side.
Daniel Smith, owner of Forth Creek Capital, presented a preliminary site plan for retail development of that property during Farragut Municipal Planning Commission Staff/Planner meeting Tuesday, April 2.
The development is located at the South Watt Road- -Kingston Pike intersection behind Little Joe’s Pizza.
He is looking to lure restaurants, coffee shops, dental offices, medical office and personal service-type businesses.
Size, capacity, Town requirements
One part of the plan that came under scrutiny is a proposed drive-through for one of the retail spaces.
The biggest concern for Planning Commissioners was the location of the drive-through, preferring it to be interior.
Following the meeting, Smith said the size of the retail “is in flux right now.
“We’ve got about 40,000 square feet planned, but that’s subject to further discussion about how that’s laid out and how dense that is,” he added.
“I guess we’re just kind of waiting to see how that shapes up with the Planning Commission. But right now the thought is to do two phases of it.
The first phase “would be most of the development,” Smith said. “We’d leave one 2-acre site planned, but we’d probably not start construction on that until we filled out everything.”
Currently, however, he said the retail site would have four buildings.
As far as how many tenants it could accommodate, Smith said, “It’s hard to say because it depends on the tenant mix, but there would probably be something like three to four per 10,000 square feet. So you’re looking at around 12 to 16 tenants.”
He said the spaces could range from 1,600 square feet to 5,000 square feet.
PCD hurdles, partnerships
“We’d love to start construction sometime in 2024 if we could, but that’s going to depend on how far along we develop it because it is a PCD and that involves a lot of Planning Commission input,” Smith said. “We’re working with the Planning Commission on a development that makes sense; (that) is going to be the biggest hurdle, and working within the confines of the PCD development.”
The retail side of the development “is part of a partnership between R&R Properties, of which Rick and Ryan Chinn are principals, and Forth Creek Capital,” Smith said. “We work together on a lot of developments. We also own the apartments. We acquired the apartments behind (the retail land) earlier this year.”
Apartments update
As for the apartments, “We have four buildings that certificates of occupancy on the south part of that,” Shipley said.
“Right now, we have four buildings delivered (people are moving in), Smith said. “The remaining five buildings will be complete over the next three months. We should have three more for (April).”
“You should be pretty much getting them all in a couple months,” Shipley said.
Smith said there are 228 units in nine (200,000-square-feet) apartment buildings.
One-bedrooms apartments are pushing 900 square feet, while two-bedroom apartments generally are 1,200 square feet and three-bedroom units 1,400 square feet.
“We have 25 apartments rented, and we’re hopeful we’ll be leasing 15 to 20 a month,” Smith said. “I think we are seeing a lot more families than you would typically see in apartments.”
