Posted on May - 23 - 2010
East Side Promenade development remains on hold
John and Steve Martin, a father-son team of Evansville developers, say they get calls daily from people wanting to be part of their Promenade mixed-use development, which the Martins first proposed in February 2008 for 228 acres of Hirsch farmland along North Burkhardt Road.
“A number of people call regularly, saying when the development gets started that’s the kind of place where they want to be. They want to have homes built there or bring in retail,” Steve Martin said by phone Monday during a break from the International Council of Shopping Centers Convention, which he was attending in Las Vegas.
He did not identify the callers.
Just shortly after the Martins’ initial announcement in the Courier & Press more than two years ago, the economy unexpectedly went historically sour nationwide.
The recession has prevented the project from getting off the ground as prospective tenants have been reluctant to move forward with the Martins.
Though Martin risked sounding like a broken record, he said he and his father still plan to develop the project, but not until the market is much more favorable.
“We can’t force that kind of thing to happen … We may see an expansion in retail and see some housing (starts) in 2011.”
Martin said, “I think it (economy) has bottomed out or is very close to bottoming out. From everything we can see in the brokerage industry, it looks like we’re bouncing around on the bottom, heading up. having just gone through the recession.”
He hopes that by attending the convention and networking with some of the more than 30,000 retailers gathered there that he will return home with fresh insights into the market and what the retailers are thinking, regarding future development.
“One retailer told me for the past two years he had been laying off people. But for the first time the last three months he was starting to hire again, which I found encouraging,” Martin said.
“People are looking to new projects. We should see economic growth by next year.”
Martin said he finds retailers have gone through a weaning process of seeing who survived and what the situation looks like now.
“What is curious at this show is most who are there said they haven’t done anything (expansion or development) for several years,” Martin said, feeling he had plenty of company.
The Martins’ plans for the gigantic Promenade include a hotel, or hotels, plus restaurants, shops, banks, medical facilities and other offices, an indoor water park and other entertainment venues, lakes and outdoor amenities.
The Promenade is proposed for the huge block of land bounded on the south by Columbia Street, on the west by Burkhardt Road, on the north by Oak Grove Road and on the east side by I-164.
The Martins realized going into it that the project wouldn’t happen over night but would evolve over seven years or more.
They had hoped, however, to have infrastructure added and the first commercial building or buildings constructed last summer.
By then, Steve Martin said, they expected the economy to start turning around.
But the plans had to be held for an improved economy.
The Promenade still is expected to support all the various features, once the Martins are able to get rolling.
“We’re spending time working on some future housing projects there and other details,” Steve Martin said.
Though no specific companies or other tenants have sign on yet, the Martins said they have interviewed hundreds of potential tenants across the nation since they started the plans several years ago.
Steve Martin said many of those contacts continue to stay in touch.
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