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Monday, October 5, 2009

A Closer Look at Constellation

The cover story of the September issue of Southeast Real Estate Business talks about the recent shift to mixed-use developments. One of the highlighted projects is Constellation, the $150 million redevelopment of the old Marketsquare Mall site in downtown led by local developer Scott McLain. The article gives us the most detailed description of Constellation yet. A summary:
  • 314 hotel rooms, split evenly between a Springhill Suites and a Residence Inn. The Springhill Suites will be the first component of the project to begin construction, which should be very, very soon.
  • 63,320 square feet of retail space, 21,000 of which is being set aside for a "green grocery." The rest will be shops and restaurants (not including the three restaurant parcels facing the Parkway). Something like an Urban Outfitters could work well in a project like this.
  • 187,000 square feet of office space. Wow, that's a lot more than the three-story office building proposed across the street could possibly hold. Maybe the rest of the office space is in a high-rise. We can only hope.
  • 97 residential units. This is smaller than the 160 units proposed in May 2008, but in line with the 80-100 units proposed with the 2007 announcement of the project. It also seems that the developers still haven't decided on whether or not to build condos or apartments.
Let's hope that some new renderings and a website are coming soon. Some tenant announcements would be nice, but that might be asking too much.

More info:
Southeast Real Estate Business article: "Mixed Use Bonanza"
Past articles on Constellation

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

187,000 sq feet would be about 7 stories tall with the same footprint of the Buildings on the new Northrop Grumman campus in Research Park. Those buildings are 110,000 sqft at 4 stories each.

Anonymous said...

A Trader Joe's would work well in that space for a grocery store. Huntsville is probably too small a market for them, though. And downtown Huntsville's residential component is not established enough either. Fresh Market is already in the area, maybe they might consider a store.

Anonymous said...

I am excited about developing a real downtown Huntsville. Every city worthy of attention, has a heart--a central core. Maybe this will be the catalyst for Huntsville.

James said...

@Anonymous #1: There really isn't any way for us to estimate the height by comparing to other buildings, especially ones in suburban office parks with relatively unlimited space compared to Constellation. For example, the Big Spring Summit mid-rise has about 80,000 sq. ft. of space, and it's got 8 floors.

@Anonymous #2: Trader Joe's could work here, theoretically. It's the right size for one of their stores. The 21,000 sq. ft. allotment in Constellation is too small for a Fresh Market. A better possibility is Greenlife out of Chattanooga. Website: http://www.greenlifegrocery.com/

Marty said...

http://www.sellersphoto.com/clients/constellation

Kelsey said...

I was just about to announce Trader Joe's myself. Huntsville is missing an organic grocery store. Fresh Market isn't the same (and is over priced.