UPDATE: Kroger Marketplace to Anchor New Buckwalter Place Development

A Kroger Marketplace store will anchor a planned 34-acre mixed-use development at Buckwalter Place in Bluffton, according to a company spokesman.

 
The 113,000-square-foot grocery store will have upscale service departments, a drive-thru pharmacy, a fuel center, Fred Meyer Jewelry, Starbucks, Chef on the Run, an apparel department, and other amenities, Kroger spokesman Glynn Jenkins said in an email Thursday.

 
The project is still in its preliminary phases and requires various levels of town approval before construction can begin. The grocery store is estimated to bring 250-300 jobs to Bluffton, Jenkins said.

 
Kroger’s Atlanta Division introduced the company’s first Marketplace store in Carrollton, Ga. in 2013. The division currently operates four Georgia locations in Carrollton, Athens, Gainesville and Savannah.

 
“We determined many communities would benefit from the extensive array of quality grocery products and upscale amenities that a Kroger Marketplace offers,” Jenkins said, noting the stores include Starbucks, Fred Meyer Jewelry, The Little Clinic, Murray’s Cheese Market, Chef on the Run and other venues.

 
A conceptual master plan of the development, which would also include restaurant and retail space, multi-family housing and public commons areas, was endorsed Wednesday by a subcommittee of the Bluffton Public Development Corporation. It will head to the corporation’s full board for a vote next week and then will appear before the Planning Commission and Town Council.

 
Augusta, Ga.-based Blanchard & Calhoun acquired from Buckwalter Commercial 34 acres in the northern section of the business park in December. The company hopes to start work on the project, planned to comprise of one phase, by mid-to-late summer, president Mark Senn said.

 
The company developed the Shelter Cove Towne Centre on Hilton Head Island, which is also anchored by a Kroger, and is targeting a similar concept at Buckwalter Place, Senn said.

 
In addition to Kroger, the plans call for 58,000 square feet of retail stores and restaurants, as well as a commons plaza and some multi-family housing. The company would also build a main street that would cut through the development and center around a 2-acre public park, town manager Marc Orlando said.

 
“Looking at the growth in Bluffton and Beaufort County, we feel like this is a good market to do a mixed-use project like this,” Senn said. “And when you look at what’s going on at that intersection with Buckwalter and Bluffton parkways, it seems to be a great intersection for bringing on mixed-use projects.

 
“We’re excited about moving forward with this and giving this project that town center kind of feel.”

 
Roughly 1,100 parking spaces are proposed for the development, and the grocery store is designed for about 4.5 spaces per 1,000 square feet, or a little less than the “average Sam’s Club or Target parking lot,” Orlando said.

 
To make the development’s appearance more visually appealing from Buckwalter Parkway, the grocery store parking lot would be largely masked by the other commercial and residential space and park, Orlando said.

 
To ease worries about the impact on nearby rivers and wetlands, much of the new parking will be on pervious surfaces. According to the master plan, the Kroger parking lot would be pervious pavement with French drains.

 
In addition to two small lagoons on the eastern side of Buckwalter Place, a centralized lagoon system will be installed around the western and northern edges of the business park, according to the master plan.

 
“The challenges that come with this site is it’s almost circular and bound by wetlands on some of its edges,” Orlando said. “But at the end of the day, this isn’t all going to be asphalt, blacktop parking. (Bluffton has) some of the best stormwater management practices around.”

 
The 94-acre Buckwalter Place currently includes CareCore National, the Regency retail center anchored by Publix, the Bluffton Law Enforcement Center, Ace Hardware, Station 300 bowling alley, a St. Joseph’s/Candler urgent care facility, McDonald’s and Exxon gas station.

 
Southern Barrel Brewing Company is scheduled to open there next month, and a two-story office building near the brewery and Ace will be built this year, according to Buckwalter Commercial.

 
The town still owns 14 undeveloped acres at the business park, which will likely be used for a future expansion of the law enforcement center and additional office space.

 
The Public Development Corporation, which was established by Town Council in 2012 to assist with luring more economic development to Bluffton, attempted to purchase the 34 acres last year for $4.05 million. The deal hinged on contributions from town and county councils and the Beaufort County Board of Education, but it fell through when Town Council withdrew its support.

 
Though the corporation had sought to control the land to more easily determine what kind of development would go there, board members were vocally supportive of Blanchard & Calhoun’s plans.

 
“Maybe this wasn’t the original vision we had for that property, but I think it will all be positive development,” board member and Palmetto Electric Cooperative president Berl Davis said.

 
Orlando, who also serves as the corporation’s executive director, said the town’s remaining land at the business park still provides opportunities to recruit companies with high-paying jobs.

 
“While we are always looking at primary jobs and trying to find the next CareCore or someone like that,” Orlando said, “this project that includes retail, a grocery store, public park area and outdoor places where you could have Friday night movies in the summer or little concerts is a good project.”

 
The Kroger Marketplace is the latest grocery store planned for western Bluffton. Construction is expected to begin in July on a Walmart Neighborhood Market that will anchor a shopping center at the corner of Bluffton Parkway and S.C. 170.

 
Sal Biondo, the Buford, Ga.-based developer behind the project, said Thursday the project is going through the review and permitting process, and should be completed early next year. He said about 50 percent of available space has already been pre-leased.

 
“We’ve gotten a wonderful reaction from prospective tenants who are really excited about the things that are happening in that area of town,” Biondo said. “There’s a lot of good things emerging.”

 
Link to original article: HTTP://WWW.BLUFFTONTODAY.COM/BLUFFTON-NEWS/2015-04-01/LARGE-GROCERY-STORE-ANCHOR-NEW-BUCKWALTER-PLACE-DEVELOPMENT#.VJDVIDKRS70