The chain entered into the agreement more than four years ago, according to the statement. Online shopping has grown tremendously, fueled in part by COVID-19, enabling us to serve customers in a much greater radius than was originally projected. This has allowed us to plan our growth differently than we have in the past, said a store representative.
The Fenton developers said recent interest in the area, including a new Epic Games headquarters, means 80 percent of the retail space is already pre-leased. Last year, we were able to quickly identify and replace our first anchor tenant, a movie theater, with a stronger operator, Paragon Theaters, despite the impact the pandemic had on the theater business. We expect to do the same for the grocery component of this project, said a representative.