A 93-room hotel and a bank will become the first structures in the next phase of construction at the former Stirling Covington Center, with the hopes that more retail businesses and an apartment complex will follow shortly thereafter. Lakshmi LLC is building a Candlewood Suites Hotel at River Chase, as the development that houses Target, Belk and J.C. Penney...
A 93-room hotel and a bank will become the first structures in the next phase of construction at the former Stirling Covington Center, with the hopes that more retail businesses and an apartment complex will follow shortly thereafter.
Lakshmi LLC is building a Candlewood Suites Hotel at River Chase, as the development that houses Target, Belk and J.C. Penney is now known, with construction expected to start by late 2010 or early 2011, said Townsend Underhill, vice president for development with Stirling Properties. The 55,000-square foot, four-story hotel will be located on 1.8 acres along Interstate 12, directly behind Hollywood Theaters.
Lakshmi, which is building another Candlewood Suites in Slidell near Sam's Club, bought the property from Stirling and is finalizing its plans for the extended-stay hotel, Underwood said. Construction should take about a year, he said.
Fidelity Homestead Savings Bank is building a 5,500-square -oot branch on 1.6 acres at the northeast corner of Sterling Boulevard and East Brewster Road, Underwood said. Work to build the bank should start early next year, he said.
At the same time, Stirling is continuing to negotiate with other retailers, including major anchor tenants and sit-down restaurants, to build along Stirling Boulevard as it turns perpendicular to I-12, Underwood said. While he wouldn't comment on specific retailers, he noted that the development does not yet have a bookstore, pet store or an office products store, for example.
In addition, Stirling is partnering with another developer to build 240 apartments on 12 acres along East Brewster, south of the detention pond that abuts the movie theater. The site already is cleared and the infrastructure is in place, so the developer hopes to break ground by the end of January, Underhill said.
Residents fought Stirling's request last year to rezone the property, thereby allowing as many as 240 apartments, but the St. Tammany Parish Council agreed to change the zoning from a commercial to a multifamily designation.
Down the line, Stirling plans to develop an office park along I-12 north of East Brewster that includes two, six-story buildings in the 350,000-square-foot range and a six-story parking garage in between, he said. Just south of Brewster, the firm also wants to build 20 or so smaller offices and retail outposts, he said.
Underhill heralded the office park project as the "next Northpark," saying the development could house a business like Chevron, which is located in Northpark. He noted that Stirling is in talks with four or five different companies who might want to come to the north shore, though he said the full build out could be 10 to 15 years from now.
The firm is hoping that Louisiana Economic Development will name the project as a certified site, meaning that everything -- such as wetlands permits, zoning and infrastructure -- is in place to allow a developer to break ground in 90 days. If LED designates the site as certified, it will be the only such site in St. Tammany Parish, Underhill said.
The final phases of the project likely will be a project to build roughly 200 condominiums and townhouses on 38 acres at the property's far eastern end, south of East Brewster, he said.