Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Hillsboro Plaza to see more changes

Ten Thousand Villages of Nashville is making a big move within a short distance.
Seven doors down, to be exact.

But the move to a bigger suite in their present shopping center, Hillsboro Plaza, means more display room and extra space for staff to work.

"We've needed more space for years," said Lisa Pierce, Ten Thousand Villages of Nashville's executive director, who said there just wasn't adequate room for staff to work with incoming items and inventory.

Pierce said they started looking for space about a year ago and were going to move into a planned development on Richard Jones Road. But the development fell through, and they started looking for a space elsewhere in Green Hills.

"(Brookside Properties) originally planned to really change this shopping center, which didn't really fit in with what we were doing," Pierce said. "But their plans changed, and the suite seven doors down really appealed to us. We were able to work out a move."

The store began moving on Sunday, Oct. 11, and took great pains to make the move as environmentally friendly as possible. The store reopens today.

The move is just one of the changes happening at Hillsboro Plaza. For the past few months, Hillsboro Plaza's exterior has been in the midst of a makeover. The renovation includes painting, signs, landscaping and some sidewalk work. Part of the makeover included a public vote about whether to keep the old, funky neon Donut Den sign or replace it with a new one. Residents voted overwhelmingly to keep the old, familiar sign.

There are new tenants coming to the shopping center.

The space Ten Thousand Villages is vacating will be taken over by Signature Nail Spa for its expansion, said Brookside Properties Executive Vice President David Crabtree. Signature Nail Spa owner John Tran said the space will allow them to expand to 60 spa chairs and have the space to do facials and foot massage. The expansion should be finished in mid to late December, Tran said.

Chipotle Mexican Grill will open in the space that once housed Wolf Camera. Crabtree said space has been cleared for an outside patio.

It was announced in the summer that two locations of the national chain were coming to Nashville. The other will open on West End Avenue. Both locations, which will be the chain's first in Tennessee, are projected to open by the end of the year.

Next to Chipotle, Crabtree said Computers Plus will be opening, and the company is in negotiations with other retailers. He expects the shopping center will be at capacity by the end of the year, with 15 tenants.




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