Regal Entertainment Group, based in Knoxville, TN, has signed a letter of understanding to open a theater with between 16 to 18 movie screens and at least 3,000 seats. The movie theater will be approximately 68,000 sf with an expected cost to build the theater of about $225 per sf, Safady tells GlobeSt.com. Regal has a long-term lease for the property with a term longer than 15 years, he says. Safady would not disclose the term of the lease or the lease rate.

Besides the movie theater, the development will have an additional 1.5 million sf of retail and restaurants, 200,000 sf of office space and a hotel and conference center with about 150 rooms, Safady says. The developers are working with several "major flags" right now and are still determining which brand the hotel will be and how much meeting space it will have, he says. Safady says they expect make an announcement in the next 60 to 90 days with 20% to 30% of the small space retail tenants. He did not disclose asking lease rates for the retail space and did not give information on the type of retailers. There will also be between 25 and 30 acres of "high density apartments" and between 25 and 35 acres of single family homes and townhomes with a total of approximately 800 residential units, he says.

The development will be constructed in two phases. A lifestyle center, a hotel and the majority of the residential will be constructed in the first phase. Construction on the first phase of the development could begin as early as the end of this year and is expected to open in late 2009, Safady says. The majority of the office space, some residential and some of the retail will be constructed in the second phase of the project. The second phase will start somewhere between five months and 24 months after the first phase is completed, depending on demand, he says. The entire development is expected to be completed in 2011 or 2012.