Harris Teeter is ready to build on Fort Mill Parkway. Here are the grocery store plans.
Years after it was announced, the Harris Teeter shopping center coming along Fort Mill Parkway is near groundbreaking.
Harris Teeter Properties applied for appearance review for three new buildings in front of the grocery store. The Fort Mill planning commission will get a look at the plans Nov. 19. The work is part of a 25-acre project shown in the application as Catawba Ridge Market.
A site plan shows the property on Fort Mill Parkway, opposite traffic signals at Whites and South Dobys Bridge roads. Three retail buildings face the parkway — two at a little more than 11,000 square feet and a third, on the Whites Road side, at 7,200 square feet. Behind those buildings, there is a parking lot and then the 64,000-square-foot Harris Teeter.
The site plan also shows two outparcel spaces along the parkway heading toward the Catawba Ridge High School driveway, and four more along with open space on the opposite side heading toward the North Dobys Bridge and Holbrook roads intersection with the parkway.
The Harris Teeter plans to open a grocery store along the parkway date back longer than the parkway itself, at least to a fall 2015 town planning commission decision to annex 32 acres. Since then the road and high school were finished. New homes, a fire station and other schools began construction. Commercial construction across from Harris Teeter began, to include among other items a controversial 7-Eleven gas station near Doby’s Bridge Elementary School.
The planning commission meeting on Nov. 19 will involve an appearance review for the Harris Teeter and two of the buildings facing the parkway. It’s a common step in the development process where the commission reviews and sometimes recommends building materials, building alignment, sidewalks and similar features.
Appearance review isn’t a step that typically stops or slows whether the development actually happens. If property is zoned to allow the use, as Doby’s Bridge parents were told during the gas station case, there is little if anything the planning commission can do to prohibit it.
According to the application, the items up for appearance review now are part of a larger, 44-acre site to include future residential growth.
A second site plan shows the Harris Teeter will have a drive-thru pharmacy. It also shows 10,000 square feet of future expansion space on the grocery store and the third, smallest building facing the parkway as part of a second phase. There also is additional parking space shown as phase two, on the Whites Road signal side.
Various drawings and construction material renderings show at least the possibility of patio areas on either side of the buildings facing the parkway, a common addition for restaurant space. Those drawings are more conceptual than the appearance review plan submitted for the grocery store.
This story was originally published November 14, 2019 at 10:47 AM.
