Building B at the South Cape Village, a new retail development in Mashpee, will soon by occupied by between 10 and 13 tenants.
The South Cape Village in Mashpee is not actually a township as the name may suggest, but a retail development with a “community” concept. From its history to its construction, from pedestrian walkways to ways to protect the environment, the plaza has attempted make itself a part of the Cape Cod community.
The project, slated for completion by the winter shopping season, has been a long time coming. Seven years ago, owner Charles Talanian of C. Talanian Realty Co. in Boston put the permitting process into motion. His original vision for the space was a high-end outlet center, for which he was granted approval in 2000. Various factors in ensuing years, however, upped the expected size of retail centers.
Talanian, who had envisioned a 300,000-square-foot space, was faced with others who were building 750,000-square-foot facilities. In the wake of that shift, those involved “had to revise our entire process, which is something we’re still continuously doing,” said Don Megathlin, vice president of C. Talanian Realty.
The new concept was for a different kind of retail space, one that is pedestrian-friendly and unimposing.
“It was designed as a village shopping district of sorts, which is such a different animal than an outlet center,” said Steven Allen, a senior associate at Prellwitz/Chilinski Assoc. in Cambridge, the architect that designed the project.
The buildings were built with brick and street parking was made available to emphasize the concept, but the real challenge existed in trying to make a large space fit into a smaller scale.
Phase one of the project is a total of nearly 60,000 square feet comprised of Building A – 42,000 square feet currently occupied by a Roche Bros. supermarket – and Building B, which houses 15,000 square feet that will be subdivided for smaller tenants.
“How do you take large square-footage spaces and make them friendly?” asked Allen. “We tried to keep the Cape Cod vernacular with the use of clapboard, brick and stone work. The challenge is to take 40,000 square feet and not make it look like 40,000 square feet.”
‘A Better Project’
Building B will soon be occupied by between 10 and 13 tenants, depending on the space requirements of the individual company.
“The space was designed to have flex,” said Allen.
The Kabloom flower company currently is the only business to have solidified a position within the building, although many others are expected to arrive soon.
“It was a bit of a challenge trying to get small stores to commit to the space before they could see it,” said David Coughlan, chief operating officer of C. Talanian Realty. “But now they can see the caliber of the quality and we have significant interest.”
A mix of local and national tenants is anticipated and negotiations are occurring, with possible tenants including a bank, restaurant, liquor store and a Laundromat or drycleaner.
Phase two of the project, which is still waiting for permits, will add 100,000 square feet to the development and will include a Marshalls, the plaza’s second anchor store.
With phase two in the permitting phase, the memories of phase one’s beginnings started to surface.
“It’s been a lengthy and onerous process,” said Megathlin.
In order to be granted a permit for construction, those involved with the South Cape Village had to plead their case to the Cape Cod Commission as well as many state and local organizations including the MassHighway, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the Mashpee Planning Board.
Gaining permits to build on Cape Cod was the most difficult part of the entire process, according to Coughlan, Allen and Megathlin.
“Going through the Cape Cod Commission process required a level of commitment, but I think it also results in a better project,” said Coughlan. “There is some benefit to the length and difficulty of such a process, but it was quite long and burdensome and adversarial.”
In order to prove their level of commitment to the community, those involved with the project held more than 100 meetings with various groups since the process began in the late 1990s and worked hard to improve the environment. They installed the first public-private wastewater treatment service in the area, helped to reduce nitrate levels in Mashpee’s river system, built bicycle baths and sidewalks and made an effort to rework traffic flow.
Those efforts were partially “a response to requests made during the permit process, but a lot of it was the responsibility that Charles Talanian felt,” said Megathlin. “He has a particular love and affinity for the town of Mashpee and has lived in this area as a seasonal resident for 32 years.”
While it has taken hard work and a great deal of patience to be allowed to build in Mashpee, the needs of the town have always been in consideration during the design and construction of the South Cape Village.
“Mashpee is an exciting place and the project is reflective of the community,” said Allen. “We’ve really built this place to become a part of the fabric of Mashpee.”
