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Mall anchors may be revealed Friday

BY TOM MITSOFF

The Glimcher Company, developer of The Mall at Fairfield Commons in north Beavercreek, has called a press conference for Friday afternoon to make a "major announcement," according to a press release from the company.

Although Glimcher Company Marketing Director Sally Dunker would not confirm the subject of the press conference, it is believed that Glimcher will announce at least two of the "anchor" stores which will be in the mall. "Participants in the project" will be in attendance at the press conference, according to the Glimcher press release.

Some sources have told the Beavercreek Current that two of the stores will be JCPenney and Sears, though that information is unconfirmed.

Hank Russman, real estate director for JCPenney in Dallas, Texas, was contacted by the Current recently, but would not confirm that Penney's had committed to the Beavercreek mall.

Nina Beane, a member of the citizens group which has opposed mall development in north Beavercreek, recently showed the Beavercreek Current a blueprint and lease plan dated May 16, 1990 bearing The Glimcher Company insignia. The plan shows Sears and JCPenney as two-story department store anchors, and space for a third anchor store occupied by a combination of The Limited, Limited Express, Lerner, Lane Bryant and Victoria's Secret. Space for a fourth anchor was not labeled with a name.

Beane said she obtained the blueprint and lease plan from an area merchant who said she had been contacted by The Glimcher Company as a possible tenant. Beane would not identify the merchant.

According to the blueprint, Penney's would occupy 126,356 square feet within the mall, and be one of what the developer hopes will be four anchor stores at the time of the grand opening of the mall. (That would make Penney's the second-largest store in Beavercreek at the time of mall completion. Construction of a Meijer "superstore" with 195,000 square feet under roof is scheduled to begin along Col. Glenn Highway this year.)

A fifth mall anchor store was shown in dotted lines on the blueprint/lease plan, indicating that it will be built in a later phase of mall development.

The Glimcher Company of Columbus has plans to build a one million square foot, two-story shopping mall at the southwest corner of the North Fairfield / New Germany-Trebein Road intersection. The mall would increase to approximately 1.2 million square feet when a fifth anchor store is added in a secondary phase of construction.

The mall is now scheduled to open in the fall of 1992, according to a press release from Glimcher. Along with the five anchor stores, the mall is scheduled to house 130 specialty shops, a festival food court, full-service restaurants and a multi-screen cinema complex.

"The Mall at Fairfield Commons will offer an upscale, fashion-oriented shopping experience unique to Ohio," the Glimcher press release said.

The anti-mall Beavercreek Coalition of Concerned Citizens has been denied in several court appeals to a spring 1990 decision to deny a referendum election on the mall rezoning. The citizens group has made a final appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court, which is expected to decide sometime this month whether it will hear the case. If the court does decide to hear the case, normal court procedure would indicate that it will take several months for the Coalition's case to be placed on the court docket.

This story was published in the January 9, 1991 edition of the Beavercreek (Ohio) Current.