Collierville shopping center idea revived

Project smaller, to be built in three phases

Backers of a new shopping center near the intersection of South Houston Levee Road and Tenn. 385 brought back their proposal to Collierville leaders Thursday for the first time since an uproar last year over the word “Wolfchase” caused them to pull their plans off the table.

The land is owned by Jason Crews, who is working with Kevin Vaughan as his representative. During an interview in November, Vaughan said the shopping center might become a regional shopping attraction. He mentioned malls including the Wolfchase Galleria, a large shopping center on North Germantown Parkway.

A public uproar ensued among Collierville residents who feared that a development on the scale of Wolfchase would create traffic and other problems. The organizers temporarily withdrew the plan until this month.

“We probably did not do an adequate job of describing the scale to the public,” Vaughan said in an interview Thursday. He told board members, “Due to some unfortunate phrasing, this thing took on a life of its own, which is not what we’re proposing.”

He said the proposed shopping center is much smaller.

“What we’re proposing between here is 390,000 square feet, total. An enclosed mall in northeast Shelby County has about (1.2 million) underneath one roof.”

The new project would be developed in phases, with the first phase consisting of an estimated 165,000 square feet of retail. A second phase would involve about

226,000 square feet of retail. A third phase would include retail to be determined.

Vaughan on Thursday presented some conceptual drawings that show retail along Houston Levee, a hotel near the intersection with Tenn. 385, and office buildings at the north of the property. A park and greenbelt would surround an artificial lake in the western section of the property.

Vaughan said details of the plans are subject to change.

He argued the shopping center would generate far more benefit to the town than it does now as farmland. “This is all tax dollars that are there to be harvested.”

Aldermen asked many questions, and afterward, some of them said they were satisfied the proposed shopping center would fit into the town.

“I’m OK with it,” Alderman Billy Patton said, though he said he’d like to see a different design to reduce the size of parking lots along the roads. Alderman Tom Allen went further, saying, “I think it’s a good plan myself.”

The matter will come back to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen for the second of three readings on April 10. Right now the developers are only asking for permission to rezone a roughly 95-acre piece of the property. They would have to go through many other approval steps before building the shopping center.

Vaughan said the group wants to line up the zoning approval before it starts making design plans for the sewer lines, traffic lights and other infrastructure that would have to go into the center.