Developer opens up about next steps for Landmark Mall redevelopment

Landmark Mall is gone, so what’s next?

A representative from developer Foulger-Pratt spoke at the Eisenhower West Landmark Van Dorn Implementation Advisory Group earlier this week to provide a bird’s eye view of what’s going on at the project.

Currently, Landmark Mall itself is almost completely demolished, saved for one corner still being used as an office to oversee the development.

While Inova is currently working through its own development application process at the western end of the development, other projects are in the works throughout the site.

At the presentation, the developer’s representative said the first four buildings to come online will be E1, E2, G and Eye on the map above. The E and G blocks will be part of a new housing development called Aspect.

The two residential buildings will have a total of 390 units and will be connected by a bridge, with residents able to move between buildings easily. The development will also have around 70,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.

Block Eye is set to become a development called The Brightly. It will feature 390 residential units with “big box retail” on the ground floor. The developer said that could be anything from a gym to a large retail store.

Clockwise below block Eye are blocks M and L2, which are both slated to become townhomes, with that development process scheduled to kick off beginning in 2023.

Block L1 is set aside as senior housing, but a previous contract for that development fell through in August. The Foulger-Pratt representative said that project is going back on market to find a senior housing developer.

Block K, set in the center of the new development, is named Thrive and the developer said it will have a more “neo-industrial” aesthetic. Thrive is set to have 337 residential units with 30,000 square feet of retail space.

The rest of the development includes:

• Block J: dedicated affordable housing
• Block D: future multifamily project
• Block H: split between hotel and condominiums

The developer’s representative said none of those three projects have begun the application process.

The Foulger-Pratt representative said horizontal infrastructure work starts in November while the rest of the development starts to work through the application processes. If all goes well, vertical construction at the site could begin as early as January 2024. Infrastructure at the site is scheduled to be completed in the third quarter of 2025 with the buildings completed starting in the fourth quarter of 2025.

The developer was, once again, confronted by city officials about the project’s terrible name: West End.

As far back as the start of demolition on the mall, city officials have been urging the developer to pick something else. The area is already locally known as Landmark, but “West End” generally refers to the broader section of the city rather than this specific development. The representative at the meeting said Foulger-Pratt is “pretty wedded” to the West End branding, but that the expectation is over time the individual developments within the site — ie Thrive or The Brightly — will become the more commonly used names.