Board Approves Plan For New Kohl’s Store
The revitalization of Alameda Towne Centre took another step Monday as the Planning Board approved the makeover of the building that currently houses Mervyn’s department store.
The renovation will set the stage for a Kohl’s store to open at the site in March, said Mike Corbitt of Harsch Investment Realty, which owns and manages the shopping mall.
The new store comes as Borders Books Inc. is about to open as an anchor store at the mall — earlier this month the bookstore hosted a job fair for the site.
While the idea of a Kohl’s opening has raised a few eyebrows among bloggers and others who say they’d like a more upscale business, a sampling of shoppers at the mall on Thursday found most people pleased with it.
“With the economy the way it is, I think it’s a good thing when you have a new business opening,” said 58-year-old Glenn Hendrickson, a retired electrician. “How can people have problems with that? It would be a lot worse if places were closing.”
The design that the board approved Monday does not call for the footprint of the building to undergo a drastic change. But a portion of the store floor area — along the east and south sides of the building — will be converted into five smaller shops, eliminating the unbroken wall that currently exists on those sides.
Other changes include expanding the loading dock so that there will be two instead of one, with the entrances to Kohl’s being located on
the north side near the AC Transit bus stop and on the south side facing the interior.
New landscaping, benches and wooden trellises are planned, plus additional bicycle racks.
“I haven’t really shopped at Kohl’s before,” said Alameda resident Dorothy Kirschner, 32, as she was leaving Trader Joe’s. “There just hasn’t been one near where I live. But having one here is a good thing. Landscaping Idea It will give us more choice.”
The changes at the shopping mall have been in the works since at least August 2002, when Harsch Investment Realty submitted an expansion plan to the city that included everything from installing palm trees and the construction of a 7,000-square foot Safeway to securing Trader Joe’s.
It also included the removal of a Chevron service station and the construction of a Walgreens at the same site.
Tags: amp, andscaping Idea, bicycle racks, books inc, department store, drastic change, expansion plan, footprint, greens, harsch investment, Landscaping, Landscaping Idea, new landscaping, planning board, renovation, upscale business, wooden trellises0
Friday, May 9th, 2008
