Three years ago, sisters Ruth and Lyn Blecharczyk were finding it difficult to lease retail space in South Kingstown’s Wakefield area. Aside from a storefront in the unfinished South County Commons on Route 1, they couldn’t find anything that suited their needs.

At that time, only two of the buildings were completed in the Commons. It was a gamble to open up an un-established store there, Ruth Blecharczyk said last week, “but what we liked was the idea of it being more pedestrian-friendly. Like a little village.”

That gamble seems to have paid off. Now, more than 50 businesses have moved into the mixed-use Commons, which is still not at build-out. The Blecharczyk’s business, Psychic Kitty, a holistic store for pets that’s on Main Street in the development, is doing well. It attracts customers from across South County and into Connecticut, Ruth Blecharczyk said.

Despite pre-construction concerns that the development would draw too many shoppers away from downtown Wakefield – or not enough from Providence – and would increase traffic congestion along Route 1, town planners and businesses that spoke with Providence Business News last week had only positive things to say about the development.

Final approval for the first 28 buildings was issued during March 2001, but it was initially slowed by appeals from local businesses and nearby residents, South Kingstown Planning Director Vincent Murray said.

“In spite of those concerns it has moved forward, and I think it has been successful to this point,” he said.

Much of the adverse feedback was the result of the development’s location. On the west side of Route 1, north of Old Tower Hill Road, it’s on a strip of scenic land that had been open space. Trying to retain that natural beauty while still attempting to grow the town’s economic base called for careful planning, Murray said. Much of the abutting land is open space, including land controlled by the Audubon Society to the north.

The effort to develop the property started in the late 1990s, when the town was looking to boost its retail and tax base. Planners instituted a 220-acre Special Management District along Route 1 during 1999 as part of the town’s Comprehensive Community Plan released the year before. “It was seen as an opportunity because the town has a very limited resource of land zoned for commercial or industrial purposes,” Murray said.

It was also an attempt to control future growth and the type of businesses that came to town. The district regulations detail design procedures, density standards and land-use allowances that are more stringent than the town’s normal zoning standards. Under the regulations, the 152-acre Commons site has 85 acres that can be built on. The retail component can’t exceed 9 percent, or 7.5 acres, of the total buildable area and at least 15 percent of buildable land has to be set aside for open space. The architecture has to be “visually compatible” with “traditional historic character” of the town, according to regulations.

At the Commons, the centerpiece of the district, “They wanted it to look more like … a typical New England village, with clapboard siding and pitched roofs,” said Andy Kushner, president Spinnaker Group Inc., the site’s developer. “It’s not your typical commercial center with concrete blocks and flat roofs that’s obviously commercial.”

The Hampton Inn, which held an official ribbon cutting in the Commons last week, is the first new hotel built in South County in 30 years. It has a look that aligns it with the rest of the development rather than with the look of the national Hampton Inn chain, said Murray.

Residents are moving into the development, too. During the last two years, 52 of the 64 proposed condominiums at The Preserve at the Commons have been sold, said Kushner.

More than 40 of those build-to-suit condos are completed for prices ranging from $400,000 to mid-$600,000. And the 232 apartments in townhouse-style buildings have high occupancy, he said. “It’s Rhode Islanders, primarily empty nesters,” he said. “It’s not just South County residents – we’re getting people moving from around the state.”

At build-out there will be 300,000 square feet of retail and commercial space. Now, with about 60,000 square feet left to build, the vacancy rate is only 8 percent, Kushner said. That’s significantly lower than a December report released by the Providence office of CB Richard Ellis-New England that listed a 17.03-percent vacancy rate in Rhode Island’s suburban commercial market during the last quarter of 2007.

“And we have a few spaces left that are in the process of being leased,” Kushner said. “So, I’d expect that we’d be at somewhere over 95 percent occupied sometime during this year.”

There is a diverse group of commercial occupants, but about half are Rhode Island-owned companies that “realized they didn’t have a share of the South County market,” he said. Providence-based OOP! has its only location outside of Providence at the Commons and Cardi’s Furniture has a small “Plus” store there.

But there are a few larger chains. At the gateway to the development is an Applebee’s. Last year, a Sears Authorized Retail Dealer last year relocated from a strip mall in Narragansett. And the Commons is attracting other developments to the Special Management District, too. This spring, a 142-unit adult condo community, Wakefield Meadows by Pulte Homes of New England, is expected to break ground south of the Commons, Murray said. “And there’s also a smattering of other properties that are also in the district.

South Kingstown Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Darlene Towne Evans said the Commons are suited to “local shoppers, like myself, who live in the area and can stay in the southern part of the state, supporting the regional economy,” especially important to vacationers and locals alike in a down economy.

Back in 2003, the first tenant in the Commons was Brewed Awakenings Coffee House, which anchors a rotary and has sunny outdoor seating during the summer, said Manager Susan Thibodeau. There, business is steady and there are usually University of Rhode Island students and apartment residents sipping coffee and using their laptops on the free Wi-Fi.

The apartments and other businesses there have created a community feel, but she said there still aren’t enough nearby residents coming to the site. “I think there are a lot of people who are actually in the area that still don’t know South County Commons exists and what is in here.”

But locals might be coming to the Commons for other stores. Clay Johnson, co-owner of The Goddard School for Early Childhood Development, said many of his 120 students live within about 15 miles of the development

About two years ago, Narragansett native John Woodmansee opened ShipMate Mail, Copy and Business Center, a DHL and FedEx shipping center, in the Commons. He had the same experience that the Blecharczyks had: his gamble moving to the unfinished Commons has paid off.

“There was a hole in the ground across the street from me, but it’s worked out well,” he said. “There’s …plenty of business.” •