The prospect of four businesses — a fitness center, bakery, doughnut shop and eye care shop — moving into the Bowie Plaza shopping center by spring is good news to existing tenants, who lost customers when the center’s former main draw, a Giant supermarket, closed its doors five years ago.
“We’re very excited about them coming in,” said Bowie City Councilman James Marcos (Dist. 1), who opened T.J. Elliott’s Italian restaurant 15 years ago in the shopping center, on Md. Route 197.
Moving into the former Giant space in the spring will be the Fitness 4 Less gym, which will relocate from the Brady Building farther south at Route 197 and Old Annapolis Road, said Jack deVilliers, the leasing agent for site owners Regency Centers, based in Jacksonville, Fla.
A representative of the gym declined to comment about the move, but deVilliers said some of the reasons for doing it included a larger space, more convenient parking, better visibility from Route 197 and the presence of other stores to help attract customers.
DeVilliers said he expects the gym, already an established business in the area, will bring “a lot more patrons back to the center.”
With the addition of the new tenants, the 103,000-square-foot center is now almost fully leased, with only four spaces totaling about 10,600 square feet still vacant, according to the Regency website.
Members of the Bowie City Council, including Marcos, had hoped to lure a specialty grocery store such as Trader Joe’s to the former Giant space, but deVilliers said Trader Joe’s and other grocers were not interested because the space was too close to other supermarkets, including the new and larger Giant in the Free State Shopping Center on Annapolis Road.
DeVilliers also said that Fitness 4 Less, already an established business in Bowie, was “a good fit” and that it would attract customers back to the center.
Meanwhile, Marcos and other council members continue to work on legislation to create an incentive for a grocery store to locate in some of the city’s other aging shopping centers, such as Pointer Ridge, which also has a large vacancy created by a former Giant store.
Legislators from Bowie are offering a bill in the General Assembly this year that would allow a supermarket or similar store in Bowie to sell beer and wine, which would attract more customers and boost profitability for a store.
Still in the early stages of the process, the bill currently known as PG 307-12 and sponsored by state Sen. Douglas J.J. Peters (D-Dist. 23) of Bowie, is scheduled to be heard by the Prince George’s County delegation Thursday in Annapolis.
If supported by the 23 county delegates, it then would be assigned a bill number and a standing committee in the General Assembly for additional consideration by remaining members of the assembly.
If passed, the bill would go into effect July 1.
Also coming to Bowie Plaza in the spring will be Peeper’s Family Eye Care, which is relocating from the Free State Shopping Center on Md. Route 450 in Bowie to a smaller building on the Bowie Plaza site that it will share with a new drive-through Dunkin’ Donuts store, deVilliers said.
Owners of Peeper’s Family Eye Care, which also has a store in Gambrills, did not respond to a request for comment by press time.
Bowie Plaza Shoe Repair, which has occupied space in the small building for 21 years, will relocate in the spring to a space in the center between Fitness 4 Less and CVS.
“I hope our customers find us,” said Young Lee, who owns the longtime business with her husband, Gil Lee.
Young Lee said she is holding quantities of unclaimed shoes and clothes and hopes customers will pick them up before the store moves to its new location in the shopping center.
She also said she hopes the gym will bring more foot traffic back to the center.
“I hope so, but I don’t know yet,” she said.
The fourth tenant, and the first to move in, will be The Cake Courtesan, due to open this month in a space formerly occupied by the Home Plate restaurant next to CVS.
Owner Sharon White, a former Bowie resident who now lives in Clinton, said she picked Bowie Plaza because of its central location and potential market for special occasion cakes.
White said she will sell designer cakes for birthdays, weddings and anniversaries starting at $300 for a 30-serving cake, as well as cupcakes selling for $2.75 each that she envisions will attract students from Bowie High School and Bowie State University.
Also for sale will be French macaroons, cookies and baking supplies, including cocoa powder and pure vanilla extract she makes herself, she said.
DeVilliers said Regency Centers recently repainted the Bowie Plaza façade and roof, and also said each of the new tenants will have their own unique and colorful sign.
“We think that will bring a lot more vibrancy to the center,” he said.
vterhune@gazette.net
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