This story has been revised since its original publication.
Jon Claitor has broken ground on two new buildings in his Acadian-Perkins Plaza shopping center at the intersection of Perkins Road and South Acadian Thruway. The new outparcel buildings, which will be adjacent to one another, will comprise 6,700 square feet and be perpendicular to the existing strip mall, wedged next to the new Red River Bank branch currently under construction. Claitor says he has signed leases with two new tenants—Mattress Firm and Smoothie King. Claitor says the Smoothie King will relocate from its existing location nearby in the Southdowns Shopping Center to his development, which he expects to complete in the first quarter of 2016.
In addition to the new outparcel, Claitor says he plans to landscape the shopping center’s asphalt parking lot, which has long been an eyesore in the neighborhood. Claitor says he is adding shrubbery, trees and a new sidewalk along Perkins Road and hopes to attract food trucks to line sidewalk as they do along the Florida Panhandle’s popular Seaside development on Highway 30A.
Parking has long been an issue in the Acadian-Perkins Plaza shopping center, and the addition of the new buildings will eat up nearly two dozen spaces. However, Claitor says he has developed a new parking lot in the rear of the shopping center that can accommodate more than 100 vehicles.
—Stephanie Riegel
