For the first time in many years, a major retail outlet is coming to downtown Tallahassee. Tom Flanigan reports it will be located at what many consider the central city’s “key corner”.
The project is called “Gateway” and will soon rise on the Northeast corner of the intersection of Tennessee and Monroe streets.
“Scheduled to break ground early February and will be a mixed use project with a retail component, which will be Walgreens. Walgreens will occupy about 13,000 square feet made up of two floors. 25,000 square feet of office space, including two retail bays on Monroe Street about 1500 square feet each.”
That man is Chad Kittrell, a principal of a hometown Tallahassee development firm called Hunter and Harp Holdings. He and his partner J-T Burnette have also been involved in the rebirth of the Hotel Duval, the Front Porch Restaurant, Midtown Filling Station and a number of other properties. But Gateway will be a new, from-the-ground-up development and Kittrell says, as such, it represents a significant expenditure.
“It was over $10-million and there’s a combination of debt and equity used to finance the project. Doral Bank provided the debt piece and then we provided the equity piece internally. No outside investors so just J.T. and I.”
Kittrell says the new Gateway building will be neither a high-rise nor a low rise. In altitude, it will fall between the Capital City Bank building and Aloft Hotel across the street.
“Four stories gets us what we need. It’s right on the corner so the building will be pushed up to Tennessee and Monroe and then parking will be off of Calhoun with parking underneath Calhoun as well, so two levels of parking. So if you look at it from Calhoun you’ll see parking underground.”
Meaning a more visually appealing structure than your typical chain pharmacy building, Kittrell says. And certainly more attractive than the filling station that occupied the parcel for so much of Tallahassee’s history.
“Downtown has a significant retail need, which Walgreens can fill as far as buying sundries and that type of stuff. For folks who live downtown, they now have a walkable option. And of course what we consider ‘Main and Main’ in Tallahassee and having a building we can all be proud of instead of what used to be a gas station and a mechanic there.”
So look for the gala groundbreaking for the downtown Gateway development within days. And don’t be surprised if Kittrell and Burnette’s Hunter and Harp Holdings sets its sights on other projects around town before long.
“We like to go and look for opportunities when we see a need and then find a location where we can repurpose something and kind of get away from the sprawl as much as possible. It has plenty of hurdles when you’re redeveloping a site like this, but at the end of the day, it’s good for the city.”