A reimagined Platte River Mall, with a host of new outbuildings and fewer but larger tenants in its 49-year-old main structure, will be presented to the North Platte Planning Commission Tuesday night.
A full-color site plan from North Platte Mall LLC, affiliated with Rev Development of Lincoln, shows a four-story, 100-unit mixed-use apartment-commercial building at the mall’s west entrance where Nebraskaland Tire & Service now sits.
Ten new free-standing buildings on the complex’s west and south — one of them likely a new home for Arby’s — also appear in the “planned unit development” co-owner Mike Works will present at a Planning Commission public hearing at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.
The panel will be asked to decide whether to recommend City Council approval of Rev’s master plan and an accompanying subdivision plat. The council would hold its own public hearing and vote on them April 6.
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Works said Friday that the master plan and subdivision are initial steps toward beginning remodeling and reconstruction work at the mall later this spring.
The council will be asked later to approve the city’s part of Rev’s financing package, including tax increment financing, a Quality Growth Fund contribution and designation of the mall as an “enhanced employment area” to help cover the project’s costs.
Given the extensive infrastructure work needed to recast the mall, “everything that we’re showing in this planned unit development only happens” if the city’s contribution is approved, Works said.
The lawyer, real estate agent and hotel developer bought the 40-acre mall complex in November with partner Justin Hernandez. Both have ties to west central Nebraska.
Their latest project was known simply as “The Mall” for many years after it opened on April 12, 1972. Rev’s plan calls for the mall’s first substantial transformation since then.
As Works indicated in a Feb. 11 Telegraph story, only a couple of businesses in the mall complex are expected to remain where they are.
Ashley HomeStore, in the south anchor space of the 241,000-square-foot main building, will remain in place. So will the Verizon Wireless store in the property’s northwest corner at South Dewey Street (U.S. Highway 83) and Philip Avenue.
The former AMC six-screen movie theater on the main mall’s southeast corner will be remodeled but stay where it is. Works has said he hopes to have a new operator soon.
Big changes are on the way for everyone else.
Ten ground-floor retail, restaurant or entertainment spaces are planned for the new mixed-use building. It’ll go where Nebraskaland Tire and original occupant J.C. Penney Auto Center have been for nearly half a century.
But as with all the mall’s tenants, Works said, Rev is working with Nebraskaland Tire’s owners “to move them elsewhere within the mall area.”
In addition to the auto center, the former drive-in bank building in the north parking lot will be demolished, Works said.
Market-rate studio and one- and two-bedroom apartments are planned for the upper floors of the new mixed-use structure.
They’ll be connected by elevator to the commercial spaces, which Works said will add to the variety of places where the main mall’s current tenants could relocate.
His site plan shows nine retail suites of varying sizes, including Ashley and the theater multiplex, where the mall’s 30-some bays and straight-line promenades have been since 1972.
All would open outward in strip-mall style, with the promenades abolished, though Rev’s plan now shows suites opening toward the east in the backs of the former J.C. Penney and Herberger’s anchor spaces.
It’s possible the two east-opening suites would be rented to non-retail tenants, Works said. The mall’s east-side parking also would remain.
The first main-mall area to be remodeled would be the area between the southwest mall entrance and the Buckle clothing store, Works said.
Tenants there have been offered temporary homes on the mall’s north end, which would be remodeled later.
Works said the current two-suite plan on that end could yet change, with current mall stores either winding up there or maybe relocating to the new mixed-use building’s ground floor.
Though Buckle would stay put for now, it’s more likely to move into one of the enlarged strip-mall suites, Works said.
The new mixed-use building would be set back somewhat from Dewey, with a half-dozen free-standing retail or restaurant buildings fronting the street south of Verizon.
Works said Arby’s, long located in the mall’s original Burger Chef outbuilding on Dewey, would remain for now with an eye toward moving it into another spot in the complex.
“The goal is that within the next 18 months, we would have six new buildings out there,” he said.
The complex’s south side, meanwhile, would be in line for four new outbuildings of various sizes. One would be built just east of the former Mann Theatres 3 and Aaron’s building, which wasn’t part of Rev’s mall purchase.
The site plan shows the other three new buildings in the currently empty area closest to East Francis Street.
Works said the smallest of those three could be a coffee shop, with a fast-food restaurant, another retailer or another mixed-use building likely for the others.