New owner seeks changes to Kettering’s Fountain Square Shopping Center

A Kettering shopping center that sold to a new landlord for $2.5 million in April is making progress on filling the space with tenants, and a sign on one of the empty spaces boldly predicts, “Something exciting is about to come.”

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The Fountain Square Shopping Center, 3109 Far Hills Ave., was sold by an affiliate LLC of Huber Management Corp., a Washington Twp.-based real estate owner. The sale was recorded by Montgomery County on April 3.

The new landlord of the 27,000-square-foot shopping center is JK Real Estate Commercial Group LLC, which lists its mailing address as the Washington Twp. UPS store.

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City officials say the landlord’s application for permits is early in the plan review process, but the management company has posted a rendering on the property showing what the company calls a “storefront upgrade.”

The owners of Meadowlark and Wheat Penny had expressed interest in opening a new restaurant, ScissorTail Sandwich Shop, at the shopping center at the time of its sale in April.

The shopping center is home to tenants including Anytime Fitness, The Shopping Bag, and Jon Thomas Salon.

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Gregg Gorsuch, economic development manager for Kettering, said: “We are actually seeing the retail sector pretty strong in the city of Kettering right now. I think two good examples of that are Fountain Square on Far Hills Avenue and the Kettering Towne Center over on Dorothy and Woodman.”

Gorsuch explained that both of those centers have been purchased by local investors and business people.

“I think that speaks to the strength of retail in the city of Kettering when our local investors want to put their money in projects in the city of Kettering,” he said.

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