FORT PIERCE, FLA. — Tulepan Management will start construction in the next few weeks on phase one of its 182,000-square foot Coral Square Shoppes. The property, spread across 17 acres on S. U.S. Highway in Fort Pierce, will contain a variety of restaurant, entertainment and office space. The first phase, which will deliver next spring, will include a 17,000-square-foot Sav-A-Lot Food Store and 25,000 square feet of retail space. Architect Kenneth McGee designed the center, and Kast Construction will provide general contracting services.
Before drawing up plans for the property, Tulepan had to make sure the site was environmentally stable. Contamination remained from a former dry cleaning store, and the center had been decimated by hurricanes.
“It was a property that had been sitting there since the hurricanes,” says Randy Tulepan, vice president of leasing for Coral Springs, Fla.-based Tulepan Management. “It had been neglected for quite some time.” To aid in the cleanup cost, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the firm a grant from its Brownfield Economic Development Initiative.
Tulepan says Coral Square Shoppes will fill a retail void in a community that is starved for national attention, and new retailers should, in turn, fuel more growth in the city. “The area needs retail. Fort Pierce is not number one on the radar for national retailers,” Tulepan says. “There hasn’t been a new retail development in Fort Pierce for quite some time.”
— Jon Ross