FORT WORTH – With the deal now signed, Hillwood and Kroger Co. have unveiled plans to develop a 123,000-sf Kroger Marketplace as the anchor to a 20-acre development beside Alliance Town Center. Site work will get under way by the first of the year.
Mark Miller, vice president of retail development for locally based Hillwood Properties, said the Cincinnati, Ohio-based Kroger will own its 12-acre site and store in Heritage Marketplace. The balance of the land will be divvied into three pad sites and 30,000 sf of inline shops. The development site is located at the southwest corner of Heritage Trace Parkway and Riverside Drive, a gateway to the 3,500 single-family homes in the Hillwood-developed Heritage community.
Miller said negotiations with Kroger have taken about two years to complete. The closest traditional grocery store to the development site is at least one mile away. “The residents have been clamoring for this for a long time,” he stressed.
It will be the first Kroger Marketplace in Tarrant County. Kroger recently has opened two Marketplaces in Greater Houston and has one under construction in Frisco, a far north Dallas suburb.
“The residential growth at Heritage and the other nearby communities, as well as the employment growth at Alliance, make Alliance Town Center the ideal location for the first of our new Kroger Marketplace concept stores in Tarrant County,” said Gary Huddleston, Kroger’s director of consumer affairs.
Kroger Marketplace is being touted as a “one-stop shopping solution,” a marriage of its Signature format and a “store-within-store” lineup featuring a Fred Meyer jewelry store and home-furnishing section with an Ashley Furniture Co.-branded line. Other Marketplace amenities are a fuel center, wine shop and gourmet and chef-prepared food line, Nature’s Market with all-natural and organic products and drive-through pharmacy.
Miller said Hillwood is soloing on Heritage Marketplace, unlike the 300-acre Alliance Town Center, a joint venture project with Fort Worth-based Trademark Property Co. The three-year-old Alliance Town Center is a 20-store mix of national anchors and junior anchors representing more than 600,000 sf of retail. Miller said Heritage Marketplace will be filled with basic services and additional restaurants for the regional retail corridor.
Coming soon to Alliance Town Center is Rooms To Go, BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse, Freebirds World Burrito and Kirkland’s. The development’s recent openings include a 168,446-sf center owned by Dallas-based Sam Moon Trading Co. At build-out, Alliance Town Center will boast more than two million sf of retail, office, residential and entertainment space.