An aging strip retail center in southern Lawrence is getting a fresh look as its owner searches for a new tenant.

Southern Hills Center, opened in 1977 at 1601 W. 23rd St., is getting new stucco facades for its 70,000 square feet of commercial space, now occupied by Pizza Shuttle, King Buffet, Pinnacle Career College, Daycom and the Masonic Lodge.

But the anticipated tenant that prompted the need for the project – Big Lots – won’t be coming after all, said Mark Ledom, the center’s owner.

At least not yet.

Big Lots backed off the deal for 30,000 square feet – a five-year lease, with five one-year options – after Ledom learned that he’d need to invest more than $100,000 in upgrades to meet city requirements. Ledom had hoped to convince the Columbus, Ohio-based retailer to carry some of the additional costs, but company officials declined.

The unanticipated costs would have included installing new bathrooms, adding retaining walls and sidewalks at the edge of the parking lot and putting in landscaping islands within the parking lot.

Work is under way at the Southern Hills Center, 23rd and Ousdahl streets. The retail center is getting a new facade, and landscaping will be added in the center's parking lot.

Ledom intends to go ahead with installation of landscaping islands, but the other work will have to wait.

“I’m going to have the landscaping done now, because I’m going to need to have that done no matter what tenant I have move in there,” Ledom said this week. “I’m very confident I’ll find another user for the space. There are a number of players out there looking to have something in Lawrence and don’t necessarily need to be next to Target or Wal-Mart.”

Big Lots had been shooting to take possession of the space by Sept. 16, a deadline that Ledom said was becoming especially difficult, given the amount of work that would need to be done.

Among the biggest hurdles would have been relocating King Buffet to a corner of the building, to open up 30,000 of efficient space for Big Lots.

That move would have triggered the need for new bathrooms for the restaurant, Ledom said, adding to the estimated cost and delaying the expected completion of the project.

The deal simply couldn’t be closed.

“Time and cost kept it from happening,” Ledom said. “But it’s a possibility they could come back.”

Big Lots, a retailer of closeout merchandise, has 1,500 stores in the United States and plans for another 80 to 90 next year. A year ago the chain sold $4 billion in closeout lingerie, paint, appliances, barbecue grills, bedroom sets and dozens of other items acquired because other businesses changed packaging, canceled orders or closed stores.

Pat Zeigler, a Big Lots spokeswoman, said that there were no imminent plans for opening a company store in Lawrence. She declined to comment on prospects for the Southern Hills site, but did note that each new store typically occupies about 30,000 square feet of leased space in strip centers, and that a store’s opening typically occurs within six to eight weeks of taking possession of a property.

“We were looking in the area, but we have nothing finalized,” Zeigler said.

The chain is starting to schedule store openings for 2006, she said.