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If you could "copy" the current Kroger shopping center and "paste" it directly across Log Cabin Road, it wouldn't look exactly the same as the new "Publix shopping center."
It would look really similar, though.
Indeed, the drawings for the new Publix shopping center have many similarities with the current Kroger shopping center. Barring any unforeseen changes, both grocery stores will sit in the rear of the property and face North Columbia. Both shopping centers also will have a strip mall directly to the right of the parking lot. Also, both shopping centers will have access from both North Columbia and Log Cabin with a pre-existing business on the corner – the Jet store for Kroger and the tunnel car wash for Publix.
Tom Hareas, Vice President of the Sembler Group, which is the Florida-based development company that now owns the property, told Baldwin2K News back in June that the first back hoes and grading equipment should be rolling in "around the first of the year." Hareas added that the clearing and construction phase of the project was "expected to take about a year-and-a-half to complete," which would put the new target opening date for the shopping center somewhere around the summer of 2024, if all goes accordingly.
The anchor tenant of the new shopping center is very strongly rumored to be Publix, although development groups and large chain stores such as Publix prefer to do a more formal public announcement, closer to the date of construction, as opposed to telling some random local news reporter ahead of time.
Sembler also is taking this time to receive inquiries from prospective business owners, franchisees and corporations. The Sembler group now has a web page for the proposed shopping center, dubbed "Lakeside Commons," which can be viewed by CLICKING HERE.
The strip mall, according to the drawings, will include 10 units, with each unit being 20 feet wide and 60 feet deep, for a total of 1,200 square feet. Two of the units in the middle of the strip mall were listed as "unavailable" on the web page, which may or may not mean that Sembler already has signed a pair of leases. Meanwhile, two large "outparcels" also will sit to the right of the strip mall and closer towards town. One outparcel is listed at 1.41 acres and the other 1.24 acres.
The Kroger shopping center developers originally had the same plan with several large outparcels and hoped to target big box stores. After more than 10 years with no bites, however, the developers apparently gave up and those outlying properties in the Kroger shopping center are now for sale, outright. The 19.02-acre property is listed for $2.38 million.
The Sembler Group more recently completed the North Macon Plaza shopping center off of Interstate 75 in Macon, which includes the following stores listed in the image below...
"We've been receiving a lot of interest, and the feedback we've been receiving about the project and the location have been great," Hareas said previously. "Obviously, there's a great deal of growth taking place in your area and exciting things going on. We look forward to signing leases with a number of businesses in the near future."
In terms of average daily traffic counts, according to Sembler's web page, that stretch of North Columbia clocks in at 19,800 and Log Cabin 5,980, respectively.
The new Lakeside Commons shopping center primarily essentially will occupy two large pre-existing properties. The first is the 19.6-acre property at 111 Log Cabin Road, an undeveloped piece of land that borders the tunnel car wash to the east and the Long Leaf Trail/Horton Homes neighborhood to the north. Also involved is the 8.77-acre property at 2781 North Columbia Street, just south of Elements Car Wash and closer to town. The third property involved, much smaller, sits at the dead end of Turkey Run in the Long Leaf Trail/Horton Homes neighborhood.
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