The Willoughby Hills Planning Commission recently approved split lots at The Shoppes at Willoughby Hills as part of its redevelopment.
Located at 28301 Chardon Road, the redevelopment is being funded by J. Scott Scheel, the Plaza and Shoppes owner. The city has since credited him and his team, including former City Council President Ray Somich, for their vision to reinvigorate the corner of Chardon and Bishop roads.
As part of the lot splits, the former Blockbuster lot will now be split into two parcels, one of which will be a Chipotle. According to City Engineer Pietro DiFranco, everything conforms to code, so approval was recommended.
According to Somich, the reason for the Blockbuster building site being divided into two parcels is there aren’t too many tenants who want to be in that type of a building anymore.
“The Blockbuster was about a 40-year-old building,” he said. “It’s too big for one, it’s too small to have a couple of them with drive-throughs that most restaurants and other types of businesses want today. It just wasn’t accommodating anybody, so we decided we would demolish the old building and in this, there actually will eventually be two buildings put up, one on each parcel, that will be smaller in size together than the one Blockbuster was.”
Overall, it’s going to be less space, but space that will hopefully house two excellent tenants, Somich said, noting that the first being Chipotle is pretty much secured.
“This is a vital step to get this done as part of the lease,” he said. “Chipotle is a great, national tenant type of business that we wanted to get into the city for a long time. I think a lot of people will be happy to have them here for residents.”
The Chipotle parcel will be located closer to Sheetz while the other parcel will be closer to the driveway, Somich said.
“We do have people interested in that,” he said. “We are looking at a small, urgent care facility, a potential bank, which is kind of odd because there aren’t many banks going in anymore, and there are a couple other fast food entities we are speaking with.”
Somich said there shouldn’t be any problems with putting another tenant in.
“We wanted to close Chipotle and get this done as part of the redevelopment for that whole area,” he said. “We are making progress, slow but sure, with most of the other tenants. It is challenging as national tenants, especially in these economic and political times, but one by one, they seem to be coming through.”
There is also interest on the other side where the former Burger King was located, Somich said.
“We do have a party that’s extremely interested, so that’ll be the next lot split variation that will be coming,” he said. “Every time we come in, we have what we think is good news for the redevelopment.”
The redevelopment is currently slated to feature Burlington, formerly known as Burlington Coat Factory, Ross Dress for Less and Five Below, as well as an automotive store.