Developer seeks rezoning for Berkshire mall

DUSTIN ENSINGER

Staff Writer

One of four devel­op­ers look­ing to build an out­let mall in cen­tral Ohio has applied for rezon­ing in Berk­shire Township.

Devel­oper Pat Shiv­ley is hop­ing to rezone 88 acres in the south­east­ern quad­rant of the Inter­state 71/Ohio 37/ U.S. 36 inter­change from its cur­rent agri­cul­tural dis­trict des­ig­na­tion to a planned com­mer­cial and office district.

Shiv­ley and national out­let mall devel­oper Craig Realty Group plan to build a 353,000-square-foot out­let mall along with other com­mer­cial devel­op­ment on the property.

Shiv­ley is one of four devel­op­ers in recent months to announce plans to build an out­let mall in cen­tral Ohio. Two of the pro­posed out­let malls are in Delaware County.

Indianapolis-based Simon Prop­erty Group and Tanger Fac­tory Out­let Cen­ters of North Car­olina announced plans in Novem­ber to develop an upscale out­let cen­ter on a 65-acre tract near the south­west­ern sec­tion off of the I 71/Ohio 37/U.S. 36 interchange.

The other pro­posed out­let malls are in Madi­son County and Lick­ing County.

Despite the com­pe­ti­tion, Shiv­ley feels that his group has the best and most fea­si­ble project.

“We wouldn’t be push­ing so hard if we didn’t have the best site and the best demo­graph­ics,” he said.

In addi­tion to the out­let mall, the devel­op­ment plans call for 20 full-size soc­cer and lacrosse fields, eight to 12 base­ball fields, a 60,000-square foot indoor sports facil­ity with an adjoin­ing hotel, and in the future, a nata­to­rium with a fit­ness cen­ter. The plans also call for six to eight hotels between 600 and 1,000 rooms within walk­ing dis­tance to the out­let mall and sports facilities.

On Mon­day, Florida-based Good­Sports Enter­prises announced plans to build a 60,000-square-foot sports cen­ter and adjoin­ing 115-room ath­lete cen­tric hotel at the loca­tion in con­junc­tion with the project.

The out­let mall project alone is expected to bring more than three mil­lion vis­i­tors to Delaware County on an annual basis, accord­ing to the zon­ing appli­ca­tion. Those vis­i­tors will spend more than $300 mil­lion per year and directly cre­ate more than 2,000 jobs.

The entire pro­posed devel­op­ment is expected to cre­ate up to 5,000 tem­po­rary jobs, up to 7,500 per­ma­nent jobs and gen­er­ate more than $58 mil­lion in sales tax revenue.

Shiv­ley said he hopes to break ground on the project next year and open by Novem­ber 2014.

But Shiv­ley and his group are not only com­pet­ing against three other out­let mall devel­op­ers, they are also going up against another local devel­oper, the Robert Weiler Com­pany, to build a new inter­change to alle­vi­ate pres­sure on the cur­rent inter­change and spur devel­op­ment in the area.

The Weiler group has pro­posed build­ing a new inter­change about one mile north of the cur­rent one. The Shiv­ely group has plans to build and inter­change to the south. The Ohio Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion will ulti­mately decide which devel­oper earns the right to build the interchange.

How­ever, while the Shiv­ley group is com­mit­ted to build­ing a new inter­change, it is not nec­es­sary for the out­let mall devel­op­ment, and was not included in the zon­ing application.

“It would be ideal for the inter­change mod­i­fi­ca­tion to be built at the same time as the new devel­op­ment,” Shiv­ley spokes­woman Kel­ley Lilly said.

Until the inter­change is built and Wil­son Road is extended from Ohio 37/U.S. 36 to Cheshire Road, the devel­op­ment will be accessed from South Galena Road.

But Delaware County Engi­neer Chris Bauser­man, who has not seen the zon­ing appli­ca­tion, said South Galena Road can­not han­dle the addi­tional traf­fic at this time.

“South Galena Road in its cur­rent con­fig­u­ra­tion can’t han­dle the type of den­sity that they are propos­ing,” he said.

How­ever, Shiv­ley said he would pre­fer the road improve­ments to accom­pany the con­struc­tion of the development.

Berk­shire Town­ship offi­cials have their own con­cerns about the project, namely the land will be annexed and they will lose a large por­tion of their tax base. The Gazette has obtained a copy of an infor­ma­tional packet that was passed out to busi­ness own­ers in the U.S. 36/Ohio 37 area at August meet­ing held the Shiv­ley group. The packet con­tains a copy of an annex­a­tion and devel­op­ment agree­ment to Sunbury.

In addi­tion to throw­ing their sup­port behind the Weiler group through a for­mal res­o­lu­tion, Berk­shire Town­ship trustees are also look­ing at other options to stave off annex­a­tion, includ­ing the cre­ation of a Tax-Increment Financ­ing Dis­trict (TIF) or a Joint Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Zone (JEDZ).

“We are dili­gently work­ing to make sure that if it appears some­thing like that should hap­pen we’ve got things we are going to try to do to keep it from hap­pen­ing,” Berk­shire Town­ship Trustee Rod Myers said. “We are going to be very proac­tive in not let­ting that get annexed out of Berk­shire Township.”

But Shiv­ley down­played the pos­si­bil­ity annex­ing the devel­op­ment to Sunbury.

“By us com­ing for­ward and try­ing to get this zoned in Berk­shire Town­ship shows how we want to move for­ward,” he said.

Posted by Dustin Ensinger on Mar 19 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.