Clay Terrace owner planning to add hotel, apartments, office space to property

The owner of Clay Terrace in Carmel is planning a major makeover of the shopping center that will add a hotel, apartments and office space to the property.

Columbus, Ohio-based Washington Prime Group Inc. has filed a request with the city of Carmel to rezone the 577,614-square-foot center at West 146th Street and U.S. 31 to allow for a variety of new uses.

The company’s leadership discussed plans last week to build a 140-room hotel, 290 multifamily rental units, 200,000 square feet of office space and 70,000 square feet of new space for lifestyle and food and beverage tenants at the 16-year-old mall.

“My colleagues and I, we’ve worked hard and smart to differentiate our company by diversifying tenancy, activating common area, and undertaking value-added adaptive reuse,” Louis Conforti, Washington Prime Group’s CEO and director, said during a Feb. 27 earnings call.

Conforti said during the call that Clay Terrace would be the first of three Washington Prime Group properties to undergo a major, mixed-use redevelopment. Other redevelopment projects have been planned for Washington Prime Group properties in Westminster, California, and Tampa, Florida.

Clay Terrace’s lease portfolio, available online, lists a potential 40,000-square-foot expansion of the shopping center as “…in the planning stages.”

Kim Green, vice president of investor relations and corporate communications for Washington Prime Group, declined to discuss the proposed redevelopment before all letters of intent associated with the project were finalized.

“For the non-retail stuff, we are far along in negotiating with several very reputable developers, and we look forward to that as well,” Conforti said during the earnings call.

Steven Hardin, an attorney with Faegre Drinker Biddle and Reath, is listed as the representative for the petitioner, Clay Terrace Partners LLC.

Carmel spokesman Dan McFeely said city staff is working with the petitioner, and the proposed amendments will likely go before the city’s plan commission in April.

Clay Terrace has more than 70 retailers. Anchors include Dick’s Sporting Goods, DSW, Pier 1, St. Vincent’s Sports Performance and Whole Foods. According to a filing with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission, the center was 91.7% occupied as of Dec. 31, 2019.

Additional filings state Clay Terrace already has 80,033 square feet of office space. However, there are a host of new uses included in Washington Prime Group’s request to amend the property’s zoning.

Those new uses include coworking, restaurants with drive-through windows, outdoor sales including farmers markets, outdoor entertainment, food trucks, health and fitness facilities, and indoor recreation facilities such as arcades, bowling alleys and more.

Washington Prime Group is a real estate investment trust that was formed and gained ownership of the Clay Terrace lifestyle center in May 2014, after the company was spun off from Simon Property Group. Simon and Indianapolis-based Lauth Property Group co-developed Clay Terrace on 62 acres and opened it in 2004.

In addition to the Columbus headquarters, Washington Prime Group has offices in Indianapolis. The company reported a profit of $17.1 million, or 9 cents per share, in the fourth quarter, down from $55 million, or 29 cents per share, in the same period of 2019. Revenue for the quarter was $170 million, down from $182.9 million the previous year.

The company owns, co-owns or manages more than 100 properties throughout the country containing a total of 56 million square feet of gross leasable space. Its other properties in Indiana include Village Park Plaza in Carmel, Keystone Shoppes and Washington Plaza in Indianapolis, Markland Mall in Kokomo, Muncie Mall in Muncie and University Center in Mishawka.

Shares in Washington Prime were down 3.8% Thursday, to $2.52 each.