Steve & Barry's looks to drive traffic to Midtown area of Columbus

BY TONY ADAMS - tadams@ledger-enquirer.com --

Low-price apparel retailer Steve & Barry's is renovating the 44,000 square feet of space formerly occupied be Service Merchandise in Cross Country Plaza on Macon Road. The store is expected to open around Thanksgiving.
The last five years have been tough on the retail front for Midtown Columbus, with the area losing a number of major businesses.
But the core commercial area near the intersection of Macon Road and Interstate 185 appears to be receiving a significant boost from the addition of a popular, fast-growing retailer named Steve & Barry's.
"The customer base is diverse and can really -- being that we're essentially in the middle of the city -- attract customers from all over," Leo Wiener, a partner with Glenwood Development Co., said of the low-price apparel retailer Steve & Barry's coming to Cross Country Plaza shopping center by Thanksgiving.
"They attract from different demographic profiles, from different age groups," he said. "The last couple of years they've really gotten hot. Their licensing agreements with different athletes and Hollywood stars really has added a lot of pizzazz to their brand image."
Port Washington, N.Y.-based Steve & Barry's becomes the top anchor at Cross Country Plaza, which dates to the 1950s and is the city's oldest shopping center. The casual clothing retailer will fill 44,000 square feet of space formerly occupied by general merchandise retailer Service Merchandise, a chain that went out of business in 2002.
The center's other major tenants include a 37,888-square-foot Publix supermarket, 23,500-square-foot OfficeMax store, and Books-a-Million at 20,136 square feet.
Glenwood Development, a private real estate firm headquartered in Huntersville, N.C., just north of Charlotte, bought Cross Country Plaza in 2004 from Oak Tree Financial, a New York-based investment fund. It paid $20.8 million for the center.
"Steve & Barry's was actually one of the first tenants we identified when we bought the center as a great fit for the market and the center," Wiener said. "It was just early in their expansion plans a few years back. They weren't really ready to come to Columbus. But we stayed in touch with them, and when the timing looked like it was working, we made sure that we were going to be the first landlord and center in Columbus to try to grab their attention, which we did."
The hope is that Steve & Barry's will spur more traffic into the center and the area in general. Aside from Service Merchandise, Cross Country has lost Pier 1 Imports and Hallmark Cards in recent years. Another longtime tenant, V.V. Vick's Jewelers, is relocating north to The Landings shopping center off Airport Thruway.
Across Macon Road from Cross Country is Midtown Shopping Center, a retail center that has experienced its own closures and defections. Both Toys R Us and a Rooms to Go Outlet moved to other centers farther north, while Rhodes Furniture went out of business.
Citizens Trust Bank recently took over the outparcel building formerly occupied by Columbus Bank and Trust, which built a new center across the street. A Big Kmart store remains the anchor of the center built in 1964.
Richard Waddell, managing partner with Midtown Shopping Center and owner of Waddell Realty Co., said he is looking to revitalize the 40-acre center in some way. On Friday, he declined to say specifically what plans were under consideration or any potential timeline.