FEATURE ARTICLE, OCTOBER 2008

SWEET APPLE VILLAGE BRINGS CHARM AND FUNCTIONALITY
Cornerstone Development Partners and NORO Management are reintroducing the village market concept with Sweet Apple Village, a $21 million mixed-use development in Roswell, Georgia.

Sweet Apple Village

Rarely does a shopping center or a mixed-use development combine a charming aesthetic with an ambition to service the surrounding area. Cornerstone Development Partners, an Atlanta-based commercial real estate developer, and NORO Management, an Atlanta-based commercial real estate lease and management group, plan to do just that with the $21 million Sweet Apple Village. The companies are seeking to enhance the cityscape of Roswell, Georgia, by building a magnet for the community.

Sweet Apple Village is a 70,000-square-foot development that Robb McKerrow, vice president of Cornerstone Development Partners, describes as a “light mixed-use” or “suburban mixed-use” center. Sweet Apple Village does not fall into the category of a traditional shopping center or a normal mixed-use development because of the different components of the project.

“It’s a blend of what people are doing with mixed-use and putting the apartments or office on top, which tells everybody, ‘We’re going to do a live-work-play,’ except for the ‘live’ is already here because we’re in amongst 10,000 people in a mile,” McKerrow says.

With Sweet Apple, Roswell’s citizens will no longer need to drive to Atlanta for staples of the city’s restaurant scene. In fact, some people won’t even have to get into their cars.

“It starts with the restaurants,” McKerrow says. “Restaurants are traffic makers; they’re our draw, we don’t have a big-box to be our draw.”

Sweet Apple Village has five restaurants lined up to satisfy the needs of every mealtime, including Tara Humata, an upscale Mexican grill and tequila bar. The restaurant is occupying a 4,500-square-foot suite in the Oak Building. Also, there are plans for a breakfast restaurant, a few lunchtime eateries and a couple casual dining restaurants for dinner.

Restaurants aren’t the only draw to Sweet Apple. There are several stores striving to meet the needs of the people in the community such as Koo Koo Bear Kids, a children's clothing and furniture store, that will occupy a 14,410-square-foot store in the Maple Building.

Since the development is across the road from Sweet Apple Elementary School, Sweet Apple Village will include an educational store, which plans to occupy a 1,400 square foot suite. The other stores will complement the demographics in the area. Prospective tenants include an earth-friendly dry cleaner, a hair salon and a wine store. There is also an office space component, which will attract chiropractors and dentists.

Sweet Apple sits at the corner of Etris and Crabapple roads in suburban Roswell, which is a prime location for this development, McKerrow says.

“You look at it on an aerial photograph and you’re looking at all these roads flowing into it; it’s like a crossroads,” McKerrow says.

There are 46,000 homes located within 5 miles of Sweet Apple, with a total population of 125,000 residents, and Roswell is estimated to grow by an additional 4,000 households over the next 4 years.

“There are a thousand rooftops that can literally connect by sidewalk,” McKerrow says. “It’s probably the first time where a sidewalk in front of your shopping center makes sense.”

More than 3,000 households lie within a 1-mile radius of Sweet Apple Village. The development features biking and walking trails, enticing nearby residents to the complex, which also serves as a gathering place with pet-friendly areas, a patio and picnic areas and a five-story pavilion.

Another interesting aspect of the development is the names of the buildings. All of the buildings are given names of trees that are indigenous to the South. Sweet Apple includes an oak park, a pecan park and two gardens, with the Oak and Pecan buildings are located in the parks of their namesake.

“We have certain species of trees in each of these, so for example the Maple Building is on Hardscrabble Road, which is lined with a row of maple trees like in an old-fashioned small town,” McKerrow says.

 One building that is different from the rest is the ivy building, which is the only building in the development that will have a single restaurant as its tenant. Once the planted ivy trellises bloom, the entire exterior will be overgrown with ivy.

Cornerstone has gone to great lengths to ensure that Sweet Apple Village will be functional as well as charming. Construction should begin early next year.

“We’ll have everyone moved in and ringing their cash register by the end of next year, we figure around 18 months to do the whole thing,” McKerrow says.

The center is an ambitious step forward for Cornerstone. The developers believe that Sweet Apple Village may soon inspire like-minded developers to branch out.

“It’s definitely a new type of development,” McKerrow says. “The level of green space and the level of amenities that we have definitely sets a new standard.”

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