The pad for a new Publix (upper left) is easily visible as site work at the Charles Hight Square site in Rome nears completion. Building permits have been approved for the Publix and three outparcels, but developers with Madison Retail have not confirmed when construction will actually start. (Doug Walker, RN-T.com)
“We’re ready to start, probably in the next week or so I would suspect,” said Charlie Worthen, a principal with Madison Retail.
Building permits for the new Publix and three other buildings in the Charles Hight Square shopping center have been approved and are awaiting pick up by the developer, Madison Retail.
“It’s been a while,” said James Martin. “We’ve had them since right after they started doing work over there.”
The permit fee for the 54,817-square-foot Publix that will anchor the center has been set at $22,822.80.
Publix has previously indicated a desire to be open in advance of the holiday shopping season of 2013.
“I won’t get any kind of target date until we get much closer to the build-out date,” said Brenda Reid, a corporate communications officer with Publix. “Once we get started it usually takes about 10 months to build-out.”
Martin said the permits for the three out parcels were filed as shell buildings. It’s not clear at this point whether or not Madison Retail or the individual tenants will be responsible for obtaining the permits when it comes time to build out each of the individual shops.
Building A will encompass 11,135 square feet with a permit fee of $5,945. Building B, encompassing some 17,584 square feet, will be issued at a cost of $9,389.32. And Building C includes 10,872 square feet and carries a permit fee of $3,027.18.
The permit fees are based on square footage and the type of activity slated for the building.
Worthen said the shopping center is 92 percent leased.
“I know we recently had a wave of interest as we’re finishing up the site work,” Worthen said. “There were three or four good prospective tenants that have inquired in the last 30 days or so. It’s likely that we’ll be 100 percent leased when we’re finished and open it.”
Martin said the Rome-Floyd Building Inspection office recently issued Madison Retail a letter indicating that the building permits had been approved, something which he suspects was required for the Madison financial package to move forward.
Grading and infrastructure work have been going on at Charles Hight Square for several months with the building pad for the massive Publix already quite evident.
Worthen said that barring any catastrophe or natural disaster, the development is in good shape.
@jrbobcat, what types of contractors have you been getting bids from? Just curious.
I don't even know who is building on the site yet. I just hope that some folks around here that may be out of work can get jobs on the site.