Five restaurants were named in a proposal for a mixed-use redevelopment at the 30-acre site of Little Rock’s shuttered Sears department store, but the plan was only online for about a day.
In a site plan dated Tuesday, Dallas-based firm Shop Companies listed an Uncle Julio’s Mexican restaurant, a Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers, a Panda Express, a Chili’s and a Starbucks Coffee along the southern edge of the proposed Shops at University Village.
Uncle Julio’s, based in Irving, Texas, would be new to the Arkansas market. The listed Little Rock location of Raising Cane’s would be a first for central Arkansas. That chain has four other eateries elsewhere in the state.
Hours after a story on the proposal was posted on Arkansas Online, the plan was later removed from Shop Companies' site and replaced with one from January.
The firm could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening.
The multimillion-dollar project, which fronts Interstate 630 and South University Avenue in Little Rock’s Midtown district, also included plans for a four-story, 130-room hotel. A hotel brand was not named in the document posted Tuesday.
A 20,700-square-foot unnamed "junior anchor" tenant, situated between the existing four-story Midtown Medical Park building and eight-story Doctors Building, was also included in the plan.
For the “foreseeable future,” the Doctors Building and Midtown Medical Park building on the property will remain as currently used, according to developers. A building occupied by Arkansas Speciality Orthopaedics would be removed in the proposal posted Tuesday.
Nearly 40,000 square feet of additional retail or restaurant space was featured on the property’s north and east sides.
A Sears Auto Center, which remains in operation along South University Avenue, is expected to be removed as part of the development.
The January plans called for a grocery store and several outparcels.
The latest site plan also reconfigured the property to include a new east-to-west road running throughout as well as a proposed traffic signal at the intersection of South University Avenue and West 6th Street.
Provident Realty Advisors Inc. of Dallas purchased the property, which encompasses three medical buildings, from Little Rock Medical Associates for about $44 million last year.
The project is being spearheaded by Shop Companies, which was also behind the development of Hurricane Creek Village off Interstate 30 in Benton.
The only Sears in Arkansas' capital city, which occupied much of the land, closed in September 2016 as part of the department store’s ongoing cost-cutting measures.
Sears Holdings spokesman Howard Riefs said at the time that the move was made based on lagging profitability at the location.
Little Rock’s only Kmart store, owned by the holding company, is set to close later this year. A liquidation sale continued as of Wednesday.