DeKALB – It’s going to be an emotional week for Tim Hays and everyone else attached to his downtown business, Barb City Bagels.
The shop at 122 S. First St., where it’s been since November 2015, and where the Chesapeake Bagel Bakery was for 18 years before that, will close Sunday.
Hays said he hopes to reopen in the Cornerstone building about two weeks thereafter – becoming the first tenant to move into the four-story, $7.5 million project at Lincoln Highway and First Street.
Hays said the hope is to be out by Thursday, and the project’s developer, John Pappas, confirmed Friday morning that the building will then be torn down to its studs, making way for a parking lot.
“There’s some things we’re going to miss,” Hays said, “but there are a lot of things we’re looking forward to not dealing with anymore: leaky roofs, and air conditioners that go in and out all the time.”
Pappas said the building is “100 percent full.” The corner, ground-floor business is already established as the Tavern on Lincoln; its opening date has not yet been set. Pappas said a deal has been struck for a business to the east of the bagel shop, but that he can’t say yet what the business is, as lease terms are still being negotiated.
Pappas said he hopes the parking lot is finished by mid-June, and that the project on the whole is on schedule.
“They’re on scheduling amazingly,” he said. “They couldn’t have been any better.”
A countdown on the Cornerstone website is ticking down toward Aug. 1, when tenants could move into the 51 apartments above the businesses.
“The timeline is whenever things can get done in a professional manner,” Pappas said.
He said even though all the apartments are rented, applications are still accepted through the website.
While the Cornerstone construction is finishing up, work on the $6 million Plaza DeKalb development, another Pappas project, will continue. That apartment building, which required a $1.9 million TIF investment, will have a Mediterranean grocery store in the commercial space on the first floor.
Back at the bagel shop, Hays used the move as an opportunity to revamp its offerings.
He said he plans to roll out a line of gourmet doughnuts, and that he just signed a contract with Hershey, which will allow the shop to add ice cream, shakes and smoothies.