Trustees Meeting Cancelled for October 27th
The additional October Fairfield Township Board of Trustee Work Session and Regular Meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 has been cancelled due to a lack of business. The next scheduled meeting will be November 10th, 2009
Frisch’s near Bridgewater Falls to open soon
By Michael D. Pitman, Staff Writer 10:13 AM Tuesday, October 20, 2009
People will have a new location to get a Big Boy hamburger and hot fudge cake next month.
Frisch’s is expected to open Nov. 30 at the corner of Princeton and Gilmore roads in Fairfield Twp. The 5,700-square-foot restaurant will be the sixth Frisch’s in Butler County.
“That’s where our customers are,” said Karen Maier, Frisch’s vice president of marketing. “We take a look at demographic areas, where people live, and those who are most likely to be our customers, and that particular area suits us.”
The restaurant will bring 50 jobs to the township.
There are two Frisch’s restaurants in Hamilton and one each in Liberty Twp., Fairfield and Middletown.
“We’re certainly very happy to have them,” said Fairfield Twp. Assistant Administrator Skylor Miller. “We’re always excited to open a new business, and a food service establishment into the community.”
Maier said despite the country’s economic challenges, business has been good. The company just opened its relocated Lawrenceburg, Ind. restaurant.
Contact this reporter at (513) 755-5112 or mpitman@coxohio.com.
Register for Make A Difference Day
MAKE A DIFFERENCE DAY!
Join MetroParks for this national event and see how you can make a difference locally! Families and individuals welcome! Students can earn volunteer hours! Have fun, make friends and make a difference all in one day… hope to see YOU!
Please register so we can plan ahead!
Thank youWhere? Timberhill Reservable Area
When? Saturday, October 24, 2009;
Click Here For More Information
Lighthouse Baptist Church hosts community events throughout October
Bridgewater Falls Purchased
Bridgewater Falls Shopping Center
By Laura Baverman • lbaverman@enquirer.com • October 5, 2009
A Fairfield Township shopping center, built for $100 million in 2004, was sold Monday for $44 million to Blue Ash-based Phillips Edison & Co., one of the largest privately-owned investors and operators of retail centers in the nation.
It’s the largest local real estate sale to happen in 2009, real estate brokers say.
Phillips Edison bought the Target, JC Penney and Dick’s Sporting Goods-anchored Bridgewater Falls from Wachovia Bank, which filed an $80 million foreclosure action against the center’s developer in January 2008. Since that time, developer Premier Properties USA of Indianapolis went bankrupt and its CEO sentenced jail time for writing a bad $500,000 check.
Spanning 54 acres along Ohio 129 just off Interstate 75’s Hamilton/Fairfield exit, Bridgewater Falls was built to meet the demands of a fast-growing, higher-income eastern Butler County population. Its 40 stores are a mix of large national retailers and smaller local ones. About 15 percent of the center is vacant.
“It’s a trophy asset in a growing submarket of Cincinnati with all the retail survivors anchoring,” said David Birdsall, Phillips Edison’s chief development officer. “We think with a little attention and a lot of marketing it could become the Kenwood of the north.”
The acquisition kicks off the firm’s strategic investment fund, established earlier this year to pump nearly $150 million into distressed big-box or lifestyle centers through 2010. Birdsall calls Bridgewater “our equivalent of the Louisiana Purchase.”
Founded in 1992, Phillips Edison built a reputation for buying challenged grocery-anchored shopping centers, leasing and marketing those centers and generating a return for its private and institutional investors. It owns and operates 250 centers in 35 states.
Phillips Edison ranked 41st on the 2008 Deloitte Cincinnati USA 100 list of the biggest privately held businesses based in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. The company had $179 million in revenues in 2007, up from $121 million in 2006. The company reported it had 193 full-time positions in 2007, up from 147 in 2006. It also has offices in Salt Lake City and Baltimore.
Phillips Edison takes a full service approach to its properties, handling everything from the due diligence and financing leading up to a purchase, to the leasing, managing and marketing of the property once it’s in the portfolio. That strategy helps it generate a faster and higher return to its investors, said Mark Addy, the firm’s chief operating officer.
Phillips Edison has raised four funds holding more than $400 million in private and institutional equity since 2000. In 2008, Phillips Edison raised $70 million in a new fund that would be used to develop property. Birdsall was hired to lead that effort and find those opportunities. When the lending environment got tough and retailers scaled back their expansion plans, the firm changed its focus to buying larger assets in distress.
“When the assets come back to the bank, the most important thing to lenders is the surety to close a deal,” Birdsall said. “There are going to be much smaller pools of buyers that can perform. It’s perfect for us.”
The Bridgewater Falls deal is significant to the local real estate market because there have been so few deals closed in the last two years, said Steve Timmel, a senior sales vice president with Grubb & Ellis/West Shell Commercial.
“Anything north of $10 million is really impossible. The ability to get that thing under contract and closed in this environment and at that level of pricing is a great testimony to Phillips Edison’s ability,” he said.
In March, the bank paid $33.3 million in a Butler County sheriff’s sale to buy the property out of foreclosure. At one point, it had been appraised at $50 million.
Timmel expects the sale to help other property owners adjust their expectations of value.
Phillips Edison’s plan is to lease up the vacant space and to start a marketing campaign to help the existing tenants drive sales. For example, it plans to give away Christmas trees during the holidays to shoppers who spend a minimum amount of money at the center.
For Fairfield Township, the sale means a sense of security at a property where that’s been lacking.
“It’s been very significant for our residents with the variety of shopping and restaurants,” said Mark Sutton, president of the township’s board of trustees. “It’s good to know that hopefully it’s back in solid hands.”
http://nky.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20091005/BIZ01/910060335/-1/TODAY
Trick or Treat
Trick or Treat is officially scheduled for :
6:00PM until 8:00PM on October 31st
The Police & Fire Departments will be passing out candy in the community from their vehicles.
Please note that the October 1st edition Cincinnati Enquirer misprinted the date.
Fairfield Township launches new website
Fairfield Township (Butler County, Ohio) has launched an all new website.
