Just a few months after the grand opening of Krispy Kreme, Auburn Mall owners announced that Stein Mart will become the next addition to its list of stores.
Scheduled to be completed no later than fall 2017, Stein Mart will take up a portion of the former Sears building, with interior demolition expected to begin this week, according the city officials.
The 32,000-square-foot Stein Mart will follow the building of Krispy Kreme, which opened in May. Both stores are part of phase one of the Auburn Mall redevelopment plan by Hull Property Group of Augusta, Georgia.
“I’ve worked for the city almost 20 years, and people have been asking for Stein Mart ever since I started here, so we’re glad to finally have them in the market,” said Megan McGowen Crouch, deputy economic development director with the City of Auburn.
Previously Stein Mart had not been interested in the Auburn market, Crouch said, but the increase in population and income over the years helped bring the store to the area.
Though the city doesn’t have exact figures for how many jobs the store will produce, it will bring a large amount of sales taxes into the city, Crouch said.
“Auburn’s No. 1 source of revenue is sales taxes,” she said. “We believe Stein Mart will draw more people to the area in connection with Krispy Kreme and the other uses that the mall is going to put in.”
Both the doughnut franchise and Stein Mart have been high on citizens’ list of desired stores, Crouch said.
Krispy Kreme general manager Lyndsey Wilson said she hopes the upcoming Stein Mart will draw more customers to the store, just as the other mall stores have already done.
“We love the [mall] location,” Wilson said. “It’ll be good for us all the way around.”
The mall site, she said, drives “impulse decisions” rather than scheduled outings to the shop.
“It triggers sales,” Wilson said.
Aside from the Stein Mart and Krispy Kreme, there are still five other available parcels remaining in the redevelopment area outlined in the project.
“There’s active tenant interest,” Crouch said. “It’s a matter of getting business deals finished.”
Hull Property Group will receive sales-tax rebates after completing the Stein Mart and has four years to create a finished redevelopment plan to collect its full incentive from the city, Crouch said. The annual rebate cannot exceed $200,000, and the total incentive cannot exceed $2.5 million during the aggregate period, which is 15 years.
“We’re taking an area that was previously generating no taxes, and the city is getting revenue it wasn’t previously receiving off of an area,” Crouch said.
Hull Property Group will most likely announce plans for the parcel beside Krispy Kreme, Crouch said, though she is unsure when the next tenants will be announced.
“Things are moving along exactly as planned at this stage, but the market dictates what ultimately happens,” she said.
Efforts to reach Hull Property Group were unsuccessful by the time of the publication of this article.
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