Passersby on West Main Street in Charlottesville who take a moment to look up may have already spotted it: Main Street Market is adding a new and improved second floor.
Home to gourmet grocery store Feast, gift shop Basketful, mediterranean restaurant Orzo and the Albemarle Baking Company, Main Street Market is already a well-known destination, what one city guidebook calls “a zocalo of fresh produce, seafoods, meats, baked goods, gourmet coffee and dining.”
The additional 4,000 square feet of space on the second floor could host one or two more tenants, or possibly serve as an event space, according to the property’s owner Allan Cadgene.
One thing that is for certain, Cadgene said, growth made good business sense. The only limitation was the available space in the building.
There are only two vacancies in the current structure: the former Spice Diva and Gearheart Fine Chocolates spaces. The Spice Diva herself Phyllis Hunter decided to retire from the trade in February after 11 years. Gearhearts moved into a much larger facility in the nearby Vinegar Hill Shopping Center in 2015, saying it had outgrown its real estate at Main Street Market.
Main Street Market has always had a second floor, Cadgene explained, but it was not entirely leasable as it was.
“We wanted to expand,” Cadgene told The Daily Progress. “We had a very low ceiling on the second floor, so we raised the roof up and started building a new second floor.”
Cadgene said he is hoping to make short work of the addition.
“I’m hoping it’ll be closed in by the end of the year or just after,” he said.
For the many who were unaware there had been a second floor at the market — albeit one with a low ceiling — the entry can be found inside between Orzo and Albemarle Baking Company.
Cadgene said talks are ongoing about who or what could move into the new and improved second floor.
“I would hope for one tenant, but it could be two,” he said. “I’m not at liberty to say until something is signed. But the second floor could be food-related, it could be an event space, it could be a number of things.”
As for the remaining vacancies on the building’s first floor, Cadgene said he is hopeful there will be news soon about incoming tenants.
“But they’re not leased yet.”
And the current tenants? Including Feast, which recently traded hands and is now owned by the Pelly family of Merrie Mill Farm and Vineyard in Keswick?
“They’re there for the long haul as far as I know,” Cadgene said.
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
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