South Alex groundbreaking scheduled for next week

(Combined Properties image)

A groundbreaking ceremony for the new South Alex mixed-use development in Penn Daw will be held next week.

Combined Properties, the owner of South Alex, said in a press release this week that they will hold the ceremony at 10 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 13. Once constructed, South Alex will include 400 apartments and 44,000 square feet of ground-level retail space near the intersection of Kings Highway and Richmond Highway. Aldi has signed on to be the anchor grocery store for the development.

South Alex also includes 41 townhouses, which are already under construction in the rear of the property. Those townhouses — known as the Towns at South Alex — are being built by Craftmark Homes and will be selling from the mid-$700,000 range.

South Alex replaces the old Penn Daw Shopping Center, which shut down in late 2015 and was demolished in two phases during the spring and fall of 2016. Redevelopment has gone slow since that time, primarily because the Fresh Market pulled out as the anchor grocer in the summer of 2016.

The townhouses, which were not dependent on the grocery store selection, began construction in the summer of 2017. And in January 2018, a deal was finalized with Aldi that cleared the way for the mixed-use portion of the project to go forward at last.

A representative from Combined said in October that once a loan agreement was reached with a bank, construction would begin. Details about a construction timeline are expected to be announced at the groundbreaking, a Combined representative said this week.

Combined also has a new map showing the future layout of the development, which can be seen below.

Click to enlarge (Combined Properties image)