New businesses are being proposed at currently vacant sites along Secor Road.
The largest proposed development would come to the former Elder-Beerman department store location at 3301 Secor Road, which closed in July, 2018, after parent firm Bon-Ton Stores went bankrupt. The closure left a 154,000-square-foot, two-story building empty.
According to Toledo Plan Commission documents, property owner Niki Toledo I, LLC plans to demolish the Elder-Beerman building and develop four businesses at the site. A pair of businesses — Bob's Discount Furniture and TJ Maxx — are listed in the plan documents, while a third retail store and a restaurant are planned for the future.
The property is about 8.17 acres, and the furniture building would be about 32,000 square feet, while the TJ Maxx would be about 22,000 square feet. The future retail store is projected to be about 12,500 square feet, while the restaurant would be 3,500 square feet.
The proposed project is set to go before the plan commission at a 2 p.m. meeting Thursday. The project requires a major site plan review, and plan commission staff recommend approval.
Meanwhile, developers of a proposed senior assisted living center at the former Sisters of Notre Dame Toledo provincial headquarters at 3837 Secor Road are requesting a zoning change from office commercial to multi-dwelling residential.
Cincinnati-based developer MVAH Partners plans to build a four-story, 66-unit facility on 2.6 acres at the property. That's in addition to the 40-bed inpatient rehabilitation hospital slated to open in late 2020. Alabama-based Encompass Health Corp. — one of the country's largest providers of post-acute health-care services — plans to spend $27 million to build the 48,000-square-foot, single-story hospital.
The former Sisters of Notre Dame property was the subject of a lengthy, often heated zoning fight when Kroger Co. proposed constructing a $26 million, 123,000-square-foot Kroger Marketplace store there. Opponents cited increased traffic congestion and other concerns in their push for Toledo City Council to deny the grocery store chain's rezoning request, but city council ultimately approved it in 2017.
Kroger bought the buildings and razed them, but the company then announced it would delay construction to focus on new technology such as curbside pickup; Scan, Bag, Go; and grocery delivery. By the end of 2018, the company backed out of building the store and signed an option to sell the 18.7-acre property to a private investment group.
Plan commission staff have recommended approval of the zoning change for the assisted living center.
First Published January 4, 2020, 7:44 p.m.
