Richmond Times Dispatch
Saturday, November 18, 2006

More big-store retailers are heading to western Chesterfield County.  The planned Hancock Village, to be at the southwest corner of Hull Street and Winterpock Road, calls for:

Wal-Mart to build a 204,000-square-foot store. The chain has a store about 4 miles east at state Route 288 and Hull Street Road, which will remain open.
J.C. Penney to build a 103,000-square-foot store, the area's first not connected to a mall;
Possible tenants to include Dick's Sporting Goods; Bed, Bath and Beyond; Books-a-Million and DSW.
"It is all about getting closer to the customer," said C. Lee Warfield III, senior vice president at Thalhimer/Cushman & Wakefield brokerage in Richmond.

"There has been a tremendous amount of residential growth out there," he said. "Anyone who drives along [U.S.] Route 360 knows. The goal is to get them shopping closer to where they live."

Hancock Village is planned for 90 acres. It would have about 540,000 square feet of space, or roughly 20 percent smaller than Stony Point Fashion Park.

Construction would begin in the spring, with the center's stores to open in spring 2008, said Doug Horack, managing partner of EDCO LLC, the project's developer.

Retail experts said it is unusual for Wal-Mart to build a store so close to another Wal-Mart.

But Jeff Kraus, the market manager for Wal-Mart's Richmond-area stores, said a second location along the Hull Street corridor is needed.

"We need to take some pressure off that store" at Route 288 and Hull Street, he said. "That area is just exploding. More and more houses are being built, and more and more people are moving in."

The Hancock Village location isn't on J.C. Penney's new-store opening list, spokesman Tim Lyons said, because the chain hasn't put together a list of 2008 openings.

But Horack, the developer, said J.C. Penney has either signed a deal or is close to doing so. The chain also is shown on the developer's site plans.

Locating a store there makes sense, Lyons said, as J.C. Penney is building an increasing number of nonmall stores to be closer to its customers. It has about 40 nonmall locations.

Of the chain's 28 new stores this year, 23 were not at malls. The majority of the 50 stores planned for next year won't be at malls.

"In order to grow, we have been building stores in strip centers, lifestyle center and other off-mall locations so we go into new and growing markets," Lyons said. "It all has to do with competition and being where our customer wants to shop."

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