Site improvements are ongoing at Town & Country Shopping Center after a Missouri man bought the 65-year-old strip mall this year.
Trent Overhue of Springfield, Missouri, repeated his prior commitment to make about $5 million in renovations at the complex on South MacArthur Boulevard in Springfield when contacted recently by Illinois Times.
Overhue confirmed that NSI 4A LLC, a company he controls, bought the 260,000-square-foot shopping center for $4.18 million from David Bernstein, president of Miami-based Larkspur Properties, after the shopping center failed to sell at an auction in December. The sale was recorded in Sangamon County property records in April.
But Overhue wouldn’t comment on what specific improvements are planned, the timeline for work and details about any specific types of new tenants he is working to attract.
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A large trash container could be seen Oct. 26 in the parking lot of the complex on the north side of a vacant, freestanding building on the site that used to be occupied by a buffet restaurant.
In addition, work on the roof over a section of the strip mall currently occupied by the Illinois State Board of Elections appeared to be under way.
Overhue said he has hundreds of projects underway at any one time at the 20 other shopping centers and commercial properties he owns and operates in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and Wisconsin.
Overhue is named as the developer behind a proposed 10-megawatt data center in Springfield, Missouri, according to an Oct. 2 story on Ozarksfirst.com, the website for Missouri stations KOLR-TV, KOZL-TV and KBRK. He said there he has no plans for the Town & Country site to accommodate a data center.
Overhue said he would leave it up to any future tenants of Town & Country to make their own announcements.
Aunt Lou’s Soul Food restaurant opened in recent weeks at the site, moving from its previous location at 524 E. Monroe St. in downtown Springfield.
Other tenants include Dollar Tree, Chuck E. Cheese and Underdog Sports, Memorabilia and Games.
Before Overhue’s purchase of Town & Country, Larkspur bought the complex in 2022 for $5.77 million from bond holders who owned the assets. The property previously was owned by a group that included Springfield developer Corky Joyner and former Springfield corporation counsel Jim Zerkle.
Larkspur’s Bernstein previously planned to build apartments at the site, but Overhue has said residential construction and management weren’t part of his plans.
When Illinois Times interviewed Overhue earlier this year, he said he wasn’t sure whether his planned renovations would include preparations for a future tenant offering indoor storage units.
Storage units were part of Bernstein’s plans for 65,000 square feet of interior space – the largest empty space at the site – previously occupied by Burlington Coat Factory.