The developers of the Grandview Crossing retail and restaurant project expect to begin construction in the spring.

The developers of the Grandview Crossing retail and restaurant project expect to begin construction in the spring.

If that schedule holds, the first tenants of the 43-acre development along Dublin Road would open their doors in fall 2018, said Eric Wagenbrenner.

Wagenbrenner is vice president of Wagenbrenner Development, which is partnering with Gallas Zedeh Development for the project.

The Grandview Heights Planning Commission on Oct. 19 approved the major site-plan review for the project.

The approval included a conditional use to allow a drive-through restaurant in the Grandview portion of the project.

The development site straddles the city line, with about 30.5 acres in Columbus and 12.6 acres in Grandview.

The Columbus Development Commission is scheduled to consider the project at its Nov. 15 meeting.

While agreements have been reached with many of the tenants that will occupy the shopping center, the developers are waiting until both communities approve the project before announcing them, Wagenbrenner said.

"We will have a major grocery anchor on the far east side of the project in Columbus," he said. "We'll have some other junior anchor stores, but no big-box stores."

The development "will include the kind of businesses and shops you typically find in a strip center," Wagenbrenner said. "Smaller retailers, shoe stores, cellphone stores, a mattress seller, clothing stores, fast-casual restaurants -- things like that."

A medical office building is expected to be built in the Grandview portion of the site, he said.

The project is comparable to Lennox Town Center, Wagenbrenner said.

"We had contemplated building a multistory development, but the geotechnical engineering studies done as part of our remediation work we did on the site showed we had to be limited to single-story structures," he said.

The developer received a $3 million Clean Ohio Fund grant to help pay for the remediation of the former Kaplin landfill site.

The project is designed to be "a suburban project in an urban setting," Wagenbrenner said.

Easy pedestrian access to all portions of the development is planned so a visitor could park their car and walk to any part of the development, he said.

A bike path also will be installed at the site.

"They've done a great job coming up with an outstanding project on a difficult site," Grandview Mayor Ray DeGraw said.

"We were interested in having the project scaled on the Grandview side to make it more of a town-center type of development," he said.

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