It will be interesting to watch whether this hotel development serves as a catalyst for more development to come. The area near Rock Chalk Park can accommodate several hundred thousand square feet of retail development. Local businessmen Steve Schwada and Tim Fritzel are leading the group that is trying to attract tenants to the property.

The site is one of the few in town that is properly zoned to accommodate big box retailers, and the development group hasn’t been shy in making it known that it has tried to court Costco for the site. But several big box retailers — Menards and Dick’s Sporting Goods, to name two — have bypassed the property in favor of the south Iowa Street corridor.

Pat Peery, a broker with Kansas City based Lane 4 Property Group, is part of the team that has been hired to market the property to potential retailers. The hotel project is welcome news for their efforts to lure retailers to the site.

“I think it certainly will help,” Peery said. “We are glad to have a hotel. It always was in our plan to have at least one hotel. We still have a couple of major retail businesses that are considering the location. We are anticipating at some point we’ll be able to make an announcement on that front. And when that happens, that really will help things along.”

Retail developers have expressed concern that the property near Sixth Street and George Williams Way doesn’t yet have enough homes around it, but that is changing. Single-family homes are being built in the Oregon Trail addition just east of the property, and nearly 600 living units worth of apartments are being built just east of Rock Chalk Park as part of new golf course/apartment development.

“The more rooftops you have, the better the site shows,” Peery said. “And it is showing better all the time. We have had a large number of inquiries from out-of-town developers.”

Peery said the property’s selling points for retailers are that it has good access to Sixth Street and to the now-completed South Lawrence Trafficway.

“The growth on the west side of town is very positive,” Peery said. “It is where the future is heading, and people can see that.”

Peery said the site’s location also allows it to market to retailers who want to attract the eastern Topeka market. He said that was a selling point for the hotel project. The hotel company believes it is close enough to the Kansas Statehouse to compete well with hotels that are situated on the far west side of Topeka.

Thus far, the traffic generated by Rock Chalk Park hasn’t been a big selling point for traditional retailers. the amount of traffic coming and going from the complex isn’t likely to be enough to be a deciding factor on whether a big box store locates at the site. But Peery said the sports complex traffic will be a major selling point for restaurants. He predicts several restaurants will want to locate on the property, but he said the development needs that first big retailer to come in and build out infrastructure before the group can aggressively market to restaurants.

Getting that first big retailer is always the hardest part of any development. But if the first retailer — especially if it is a big one like a Costco — does come, the area is poised to be a major shopping area.

One concept plan that often is pitched to potential tenants shows a 140,000 square foot big box store on one end, a 100,000 square foot store on the other, with space for 13 other smaller retailers in between. In total, the concept plan shows about 640,000 square feet of commercial space around about 3,000 parking spaces.

The concept plan is almost certain to change, as the hotel project will require some alterations, but it does give you an idea of the scope of development the group is hoping for. As for the timing of when the next major announcement may come at the site, Peery directed me to Schwada. I haven’t yet heard back from him, but I’ll let you know if I do.

Town Talk column