ShawneeDispatch.com

Photo by Sara Shepherd

The big-box store at Shawnee Parkway Plaza — previously home to Price Chopper — has been empty more than 10 years. Savers, a national thrift store chain, plans to move into the west half of the space by summer 2012.

A new tenant is on the way to one of Shawnee’s most notorious empty big-box stores.

Savers, a national-chain thrift store, only plans to fill half the old Price Chopper store at Shawnee Parkway Plaza, but landlords say it’s a step in the right direction.

“We’re pleased to have an operating anchor — finally,” said Bill Bond, senior vice president of New York-based Emmes Asset Management, which owns the center. “And we hope to fill out the rest of the anchor box and fill up the shopping center.”

The 57,000-square-foot grocery store, 13201 Shawnee Mission Parkway, closed more than 10 years ago, according to city records.

Even though the business wasn’t using the space, Price Chopper continued paying rent until Emmes terminated the lease agreement early to pursue the deal with Savers, Bond said.

When the Scrapbook Page opened at Shawnee Parkway Plaza in December 2000, the whole center was full, said Cameron Elliott, who owns the store with his wife.

Now, they’re one of only three tenants — and one of those, H&R Block, is seasonal.

Elliott said he was glad to see an anchor tenant moving in.

“We’re always happy to have more tenants in the center,” he said. “More tenants in the center provides more activity.”

Savers plans to move into the west half of the old grocery store. Although renovations are under way to the east half as well, there is still no tenant, Bond said.

Emmes is currently negotiating with a smaller tenant to move into a different storefront in the center, Bond said, but a lease hasn’t been finalized.

A site plan approved by the Shawnee Planning Commission calls for facade renovations and a new color scheme. The plan integrates architectural elements desired by Savers with the remainder of the center, providing architectural consistency between the old and new parts, a city staff report said.

Savers hopes to open its Shawnee store by early summer, a company official said.

The company has more than 270 stores, including four others in the metropolitan area, in Overland Park, Olathe, Independence, Mo., and Liberty, Mo.

The company typically teams stores with nonprofit organizations in their respective communities, but officials have yet to announce an alliance in Shawnee.

The Shawnee Parkway Plaza Price Chopper is one of four empty big-box stores in the city, said Andrew Nave, executive director of the Shawnee Economic Development Council.

A former Dillons store at Westbrooke Village shopping center, 75th Street and Quivira Road, and a former Cosentino’s Price Chopper at Oak Valley shopping center, Kansas Highway 7 and Johnson Drive, remain vacant. Nellie and Nicos antique store now occupies half of the old Hy-Vee at 6495 Quivira Road.

Nave said splitting the Shawnee Parkway Plaza anchor space should make it more marketable, adding that numerous chain stores that once needed such a large space have been shuttered in recent years — such as Circuit City and Linens ’n Things, which is now online-only.

“The challenge with big-box retail has been just the shifting of supply and demand,” Nave said. “There’s fewer people to take a 60,000-square-foot space than there used to be.”

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