The Marketplace project will include retail shops anchored by a 23,000-sf Longs Drugs and a 57,000-sf Ralph's Supermarket, which Regency Realty Corp. is developing and managing. Jacksonville, FL-based Regency Realty Corp. purchased 13.5 acres for its drug and grocery store project from the Mansour Co. this past October for an undisclosed amount. The Longs Drugs will be completed by the end of the year and Ralph's will be completed by summer 2002.

So far, a Big O Tire store, a post office and several gas stations have been completed. Once its finished, the entire Town Center East project, designed to look like a French village, will include a 100-room hotel, a 14-screen movie theater with the option to add four more screens, a smattering of restaurants and cafes, department stores, office space and a car dealership.

"The whole theme will be European," says Doug Wiley, a management and development consultant with Foothill Partners. "It's a very classy and unique look and I think that the European feel is consistent with other developments in El Dorado Hills. The goal here is to make it look older than the rest of the community rather than newer."