When ground broke last February on the massive Juban Crossing retail/residential/entertainment project in Livingston Parish, developer Creekstone Companies announced Kohl’s department store was the first national retailer to sign on to the project and said more announcements would follow “in the coming weeks.”
Nearly a year later, those announcements have yet to come. However, lots of dirt has been moved at the site, and Creekstone Companies Principal Stephen Keller says negotiations are still taking place with those national retailers he alluded to last year.
“Our project is moving forward and will begin offering Livingston Parish residents the finest shopping, dining and working destination in 2013. We have a solid group of retailers dedicated to the success of this project and ready to break ground,” he says in a prepared release. “Similar to other industries, national retail markets are focusing on European sovereign debt issues and the reality of slower economic recovery; however, we are seeing an increase in retail activity and interest in our project that is the strongest environment since 2007. While we are not immune to the realities of the marketplace, we are working with retailers to establish a timeline that fits their plans for growth and a seamless construction site.”
Creekstone Companies previously said they were negotiating with Ross Dress for Less and T.J. Maxx, among others. As originally announced, the first of three phases of development on the 471-acre site at Interstate 12 and Juban Road is to include 350,000 square feet of retail space, as well as a 14-screen movie theatre, national chain restaurants, a hotel, drug store, gas station and two banks.
That phase was originally expected to open in the fall, but it appears 2013 is now the new targeted date. General contractor Block Construction has moved roughly a half million cubic yards of dirt in preparation for vertical construction, a Creekstone spokesperson says, and crews have completed 95% of the earth work—including the clearing of 162 acres, raising the site, building retention ponds and drainage ditches, and laying subsurface drainage, water lines and sewer lines for the project’s first two phases.
