Developer: Progress on schedule for October grand opening

By ELISHA SAUERS, Staff Writer Published August 24, 2008

Hoping to create the area's premier home-fashions retail destination, the developer of Annapolis Towne Centre announced last week that six home-furnishings stores have signed on as the latest tenants of the $500-million shopping plaza.

Arhaus, Bed Bath & Beyond, Desi Living, Great Gatherings, Paper Source and Sur La Table will have stores within the development, which is the size of about 34.5 football fields.

The Arhaus company bills itself as an environmentally conscious furniture store that claims it never sells pieces manufactured with wood from rainforests or conservation areas. Desi Living specializes in Italian design; Sur La Table focuses on kitchen accoutrements; and Paper Source sells handmade paper products. Great Gatherings offers furnishings for entertaining at home.

Bed Bath & Beyond, which already has a small store located less than a mile away from the Towne Centre site in Harbour Center, is planning an atypically oversized store for the new development.

Brian Gibbons, president and chief executive of Greenberg Gibbons, the company developing the site, said he didn't think Bed Bath & Beyond wanted to close the existing Harbour Center store but rather had intentions of separate "concepts" for the two locations. Officials from Bed Bath & Beyond could not be reached for comment.

Mr. Gibbons said the center is on target for its scheduled October grand opening. "About 30 to 40 percent will be open, and the main Target will be open in October," he said. The company anticipates the entire development to be up and running within the year, he said. A 170,000-square-foot Target store will anchor the retail property, along with a 70,000-square-foot Whole Foods. The center will also feature women's clothing and accessories retailers, such as Talbots, Anthropologie and Smyth Jewelers, and a host of restaurants, including Gordon Biersch, Real Seafood, Chop House, P.F. Chang's, Brio, Daily Grill and Silver Diner. Greenberg Gibbons began plans for the mixed-use property last year after terminating the lease for Parole Services, a well-known gas and propane station at the corner of Route 2 and Forest Drive.

The developers erected Annapolis Towne Centre of Parole on the property where Parole Plaza once stood a year ago. Greenberg Gibbons razed the former development, which had fallen into disrepair and constructed new buildings. Along with commercial space, the project includes office, condominium and apartment plans.