On Feb. 7th the owner/developer, broker, and general contractor for the property at 201 South Plano Road (the old Sears building) had an open house outside in front of the old Sears Building.
Several residents from NCPNA went in addition to residents from the other neighborhoods in East Richardson. There were about 300 people in attendance.
The developer/broker were not prepared for the size of crowd. They had only 15 brochures to hand out, no speaker system, and no posters or diagrams other than what was in the brochure.
The plan is to place a Japanese Grocery store, AEON (https://www.welcome-aeon.com/) in the back of the building. It will be the first of the chain outside of Asia. According to the developer, the store will not just carry Japanese food, however, they expect people to come a long distance to the store. They claimed it would be on the level of Sprouts or maybe Whole foods. The stores in the AEON chain in the Asia are department stores that sell food, household goods, clothing and other items. Similar to a Super Target. However, the one in Richardson, they said, will only have groceries.
They plan to have a few smaller stores and eateries (such as a Panera). It was not clear whether these places would be in the AEON or under the roof but outside the store.
They do not have all the permits cleared yet. The city has some improvements to safety and traffic access they need to make first.
They were not able to work out an arrangement with Sprouts, Whole Foods, or HEB.