Mayor Williams delighted with Rookwood Exchange plan

During Tuesday night’s council meeting, Mayor Tom Williams gave a sneak preview of plans for Rookwood Exchange when he unveiled a preliminary drawing of what could wind up being more than a $200 million project. Tracy Nemenz, marketing director for the developer Rookwood Partners told today’s Enquirer, “It’s very preliminary. We wanted to put something on paper to get a dialogue started…The plans are a way to start to think about what's the best use for that property in 2008." According to the preliminary plans filed with the City, office and retail space, condos, restaurants, a hotel, a two-story underground garage would be included. One building could be as high as 16 stories and two others could be 15 stories.

With the precarious state of the national economy, Rookwood Partners has no firm start date for construction, but Mayor Williams told council Tuesday night that the project might be completed in four years. He told Enquirer reporter Steve Kemme he is delighted with the preliminary plans and that he doesn’t know of anything Rookwood Partners has ever done that wasn’t first class. He added, “I have a feeling this is going to be way above first class.”