New Market North is developing rapidly

Chicago has the Magnificent Mile, Los Angeles has the Miracle Mile, and Wichita is now going to have the NewMarket mile.

NewMarket Square, Slawson Cos.’ shopping center at 21st and Maize Road, is three-fourths of a mile along Maize Road.

A new addition, NewMarket North, will make it a full mile.

“This will be the last quarter-mile,” says Slawson’s Jerry Jones.

The addition will be at the northernmost part of the development, which is the southwest corner of 29th and Maize Road.

Jones says Greteman Group helped Slawson brand this part of the development slightly differently because the center will be slightly different from the rest of NewMarket.

“It’ll still be part of NewMarket Square, but it’ll have its own feel to it,” he says.

“We’re going a little more contemporary. … We’re going to be more compact on this site, more pedestrian-oriented, with more emphasis on the landscaping.”

Jones says NewMarket Square is more of a conventional shopping center.

NewMarket North will have offices and possibly even apartments above the retail and restaurant spaces.

The first building at NewMarket North will be 21,400 square feet with three to five tenants, two of which are already signed.

Orangetheory Fitness will open on the south end of the building in December.

Franchisee Pat Walsh, a co-owner in the business, opened Wichita’s first Orangetheory atWaterfront Plaza at the northwest corner of 13th and Webb Road in January.

The gym offers group interval training for about 25 people at a time for hourlong classes.

Each person is hooked up to a heart rate monitor that goes around the chest. It monitors levels of an exerciser’s heart rate and calories burned.

“We’ve had a really good response,” Walsh says.

He calls NewMarket the west side’s premier shopping center.

With the start of NewMarket North, he says, “We jumped on it.”

Jones says he can’t announce the tenant for the north end of the building just yet.

“I can tell you it will be a full-service breakfast restaurant.”

Construction is set to begin on the building, and Jones says he expects it to be fully occupied by spring.

Two other strip centers will follow. One on the south end of the development will be 66,000 square feet. One on the north end will be about 26,000 square feet.

“The market will dictate how quickly we do those,” Jones says.

There also will be an area called the Terrace, which will be close to the street on the south end.

There will be a water feature with terraces above it and, likely, two 6,000-square-foot restaurants overlooking it.

“We’re looking for something cool for that spot,” Jones says.

He says there will be a lot of outside seating opportunities.

“It’ll have a lot of energy.”

Slawson’s permit with the Corps of Engineers calls for a conservation area that wraps around the site with protected wetlands.

Since NewMarket North was not part of Slawson’s original NewMarket acquisition, it is not bound by tenant agreements that sometimes prohibit more than one kind of any business.

“We pretty much get a clean slate on this property,” Jones says.

A number of potential NewMarket North tenants, such as Versona, Simply Mac andFirehouse Subs, ended up opening in NewMarket Square instead.

“Now we’re filling up, so it’s time to make this step,” Jones says.

There is one more phase in the middle of NewMarket Square left to develop by the plaza at the main entrance. There’s about 32,000 square feet left there.

Slawson also has the Cadillac Lake project across the street at the southeast corner of 29th and Maize Road, which Jones says is more of a mixed-use development with retail, restaurants, offices and a possible hotel.

Jones says Cadillac Lake and NewMarket North will develop at the same time.

Key Construction is the general contractor for NewMarket North. LK Architecture is the architect, PEC is the engineer, and Legacy Bank is providing financing.

As NewMarket North and Cadillac Lake develop, Jones says, the sites could share potential tenants.

One of those may be Designer Shoe Warehouse, the much-coveted shoe store that first began telling shoppers at its stores in nearby cities that it would be coming to NewMarket a few years ago.

Instead, it’s now locating first at Greenwich Place at K-96 and Greenwich this fall.

Jones says DSW is still a possibility for NewMarket North.

“They certainly know where it is,” he says. “And their customers, I know, have made them aware that they’re anxious for them to open out here.”

We’ll let you know what happens.