Demolition of old Cloverleaf Mall under way

The Cloverleaf Mall in 2005. Page Dowdy/Chesterfield Observer With demolition of the old Cloverleaf Mall under way, private businesses are preparing to invest more than $40 million over two years into a suburban center that will be anchored by a mega-Kroger grocery store, restaurants and retail shops.

“We’re very, very excited to get started,” said James Downs, a partner in Crosland Southeast, the North Carolina-based development and investment firm building the new center.

Earlier this month, Crosland’s Stonebridge Realty Holdings bought about one-third of the 83-acre mall from the Chesterfield County Economic Development Authority. Demolition of the old building was expected to get started on Tuesday in a ground-breaking ceremony attended by business and county officials, according to Tom Jacobson, the county’s revitalization director.

Now Crosland, as well as Kroger, will begin preparations for investment and construction of the infrastructure and buildings that will house the new businesses.

Kroger expects to spend $18 million in total on a flagship 123,000 square-foot store, the largest in the mid-Atlantic region, said Fenton Childers, a Roanoke-based real estate manager for the grocery store chain.

It will sell the usual produce and groceries but also furniture, small appliances, and home décor, he said. More than twice the size of the Hull Street Road Kroger, the new Kroger will offer “a really enhanced prepared foods section” with an indoor eating space, he said, Construction will start in February or March of next year, he said. The store is expected to open by November of 2012.

Meanwhile, Crosland will invest a total of $27 million in the first phase of the redevelopment of the mall, Downs said. That will include construction of space for small retailers and restaurants, he said.

In the second phase of development, Crosland will buy the rest of the 83 acres for development of residential and office space. “The investment [for both phases] could be $75 million or more,” Downs said.

Once the entire center is finished, it “will be more of an urban design,” Jacobson said. “There will be sidewalks, multistory buildings.”

He expects it to be used not only by Chesterfield residents but also by people from Richmond and nearby counties. “It’s what we call a regional site” because it’s highly accessible, Jacobson said of the center, located at the intersection of Midlothian Turnpike and Chippenham Parkway.

This week’s ground-breaking represents a milestone for the county, which has been working to get revitalization of the economically strategic area off the ground since the early 2000s. Officials are counting on the new center to become a catalyst for more investment.

“The key is to get a project big enough to create faith,” Jacobson said. “This is big enough to turn people’s heads.”

The county has committed up to $11.3 million to build the publicly-owned infrastructure – including roads, curbs, and sewer lines – that the center will need, said Matt Harris, a senior budget analyst for Chesterfield County.

“We’re only committing dollars that we don’t have today,” he said. By that, he means that the deal is structured, so that any county money put into the center must be generated by the project itself in the form of real estate and sales taxes.