By Mark Kawar, Omaha World-Herald, Neb. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Apr. 9--After nearly a decade of planning and wrangling, the Hawthorne Court development in southwest Omaha is getting a commercial strip center with a Hy-Vee supermarket.
Construction at the development's commercial center east of 180th and Q Streets began last month. When completed in 2004, it will have a Hy-Vee and about a dozen other businesses.
The commercial center has been planned for years but didn't take shape while Lanoha Development Inc. of Omaha and Hy-Vee, the site's anchor store, disagreed in and out of court about the pace of development. Lanoha wanted the grocery store to move forward. Hy-Vee wasn't ready to build yet.
Also caught in the disagreement -- now settled -- was Pacific Springs, another Lanoha community, east of 180th and Pacific Streets. Pacific Springs will eventually have a Hy-Vee, too, but it will have to wait for more residents first, said a Hy-Vee spokeswoman.
Both sides say that the disagreement was essentially a miscommunication and that they are happy with the settlement.
Ten years ago, these far-west Omaha stretches of undeveloped land offered the promise for growth, as the city continued its sprawl.
Residential areas were to be the bulk of both developments, and Hy-Vee Food Stores Inc. agreed to build anchor shopping centers in each. The residential portions moved ahead as planned, and today few lots are unoccupied in either development.
Typically, in a new development, houses come in first, then commercial anchors like grocery stores move in once there is a sufficient customer base. Last come the ancillary shops and retailers that fill out the development.
'The classical rule of development is follow the rooftops,' said Marty Shukert, a planning consultant and a former Omaha planning director. 'A grocery store wouldn't usually go out into the middle of nowhere.'
But Lanoha, in a lawsuit filed in 2002 in U.S. District Court in Omaha, said Hy-Vee promised to build at Pacific Springs by 1999 and at Hawthorne within two years of building the first store.
Because of restrictive agreements with Hy-Vee, Lanoha couldn't sell other property in the developments to a competing grocery store as long as Hy-Vee owned the lots. And, without an anchor, smaller retailers didn't move in.
In the lawsuit, Lanoha Development accused Hy-Vee of 'land banking' the property -- buying the lots just to keep competitors out of the area.
In August 2002, the lawsuit was set aside because of a settlement reached through mediation.
'There was a miscommunication about the start times,' Dave Lanoha, owner of Lanoha Development, said Tuesday. 'We just had to make certain legal filings to protect our interest, but it was settled very amicably.'
Hy-Vee still thinks it's too early to build at the other development, Pacific Springs, where a shopping center is planned and where land has been cleared. The shopping center is on hold until the area has more residents.
'Generally what we do in an area that's projected to grow is get some land and wait for the area to grow,' Hy-Vee spokeswoman Ruth Mitchell said. 'We don't want to be too far ahead of the housing in an area.'
The Pacific Springs center at 180th and Pacific Streets will probably have about 30 businesses and a Hy-Vee anchor.
Hawthorne's commercial center at 180th and Q Streets is scheduled to open in late 2004. It will include a Methodist Health System clinic and a Great Western Bank in addition to the Hy-Vee. It probably will also have a day-care center, a convenience store and fast-food restaurants, Lanoha said.
The Hawthorne Hy-Vee will be the company's ninth store in Omaha and its farthest west.
'We keep really close tabs on demographic growth, and there's a significant amount of growth going on' at the far western edge of Omaha, said Dan Brabec, president of Great Western Bank, which is building a branch at Hawthorne Court.
That location, he said, 'was a given the minute we found out Hy-Vee was going to anchor it.'
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(c) 2003, Omaha World-Herald, Neb. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
