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Soon, Wesley Chapel will be furniture hub

Ashley, Havertys, Kids Room and Ethan Allen plan to settle in near Rooms To Go.

By CHUIN-WEI YAP
Published November 15, 2006

WESLEY CHAPEL - The nascent Cypress Creek shopping center began to take shape last week when crews started construction on the Ashley and Havertys furniture stores there.

Cypress Creek will eventually be home to a 400-acre development straddling State Road 56 just east of Interstate 75.

The development is distinct from Cypress Creek Town Center, the 500-acre giant mall still rumbling through a lawsuit brought against it by environmentalists. That lawsuit is due to be heard at the Southwest Florida Water Management District in March.

In the meantime, its easterly neighbor is moving ahead.

"They'll probably open spring 2007," said Jim Kovacs, a Colliers Arnold broker representing Cypress Creek, of the Ashley and Havertys stores. "We're working on a couple other prospects, but we're not ready to announce yet."

Ashley Furniture and Havertys Furniture are separate chain stores. Each would be about 50,000 square feet; together, they are about half the size of a Wal-Mart supercenter. They will anchor a 210,000-square-foot shopping center at the western end of a strip that is rapidly shaping up as a furniture corridor.

Less than a mile east of Cypress Creek, a kids' furniture store could open by mid 2007, builders said.

Kids Room, a California furniture store touting itself as the oldest and largest of its kind in the West, will open a store at the Cypress View Square mini-mall next to Seven Oaks, said superintendent Dale Bizzell of Itasca Construction & Associates.

At the eastern end of that corridor, Rooms To Go opened in May. Rooms To Go and Ashley are No. 1 and No. 2 in nationwide furniture sales, respectively.

Ethan Allen has plans to open a store in 2008, also within the Cypress Creek shopping center with Ashley and Havertys.

Other furniture retailers, including Leaders Casual, a rattan and wicker specialist, are also said to be eyeing space along the SR 56 corridor, brokers say.

The southern half of the Cypress Creek shopping center takes up 26 acres. An Indianapolis developer, Jeff Greenwalt, bought the site in August 2005 for $8.5-million.

To its north, a professional center is also being built as part of the same development. Deeper into the development, signs advertise a coming office building, but the land remains uncleared.

Chuin-Wei Yap covers growth and development. He can be reached at (813) 909-4613 or cyap@sptimes.com.

[Last modified November 14, 2006, 23:26:42]