An architect's rendering of a proposed 400,000-square-foot shopping center on the north side of Carl T. Jones Drive in Jones Valley. (Courtesy Raymond Jones Jr.)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – Another piece of scenic Jones Valley is in line to be developed into restaurants and high-end shopping.

During a Huntsville zoning committee meeting this morning, Raymond Jones Jr. unveiled drawings of a planned 400,000-square-foot shopping center at the northwest corner of Carl T. Jones Drive and Ledges Drive.

Jones, who is developing the 126-acre property with relatives from the Lowe and Blue families, said the still-unnamed retail project would be "more high-end" than the Valley Bend at Jones Farm shopping center directly across Carl T. Jones Drive.

The family is working with the architectural firm that designed The Summit in Birmingham and Turkey Creek, an upscale commercial development in Knoxville, Tenn.

Jones said an "ambitious" timeline would have the first stores opening in 2015.

While Valley Bend boasts some of Huntsville's most successful big-box stores, Jones said the trend nationally is for smaller retail spaces. A drawing given to the zoning committee shows 19 retail parcels laid out in an arc between Ledges Drive and Aldridge Creek. The smallest space is 6,000 square feet, the largest 104,000 square feet.

The site plan also shows 11 potential retail or restaurant outparcels along Carl T. Jones Drive.

Jones said retailers he spoke with at a recent International Council of Shopping Centers meeting in Atlanta like that the property borders a "successful established retail corridor" in an area of high income levels.

"We've had some good conversations – most of them with retailers not currently in the market," said Jones.

The still-unnamed shopping center being developed by members of the Jones, Blue and Lowe families would cover 126 acres on the north side of Carl T. Jones Drive between Ledges Drive and Aldridge Creek. (Courtesy Raymond Jones Jr.)

The developers are asking the city to rezone the property from multi-family residential with a small amount of neighborhood retail to highway business C-4, which allows a wider range of retail and specialty uses.

The family is offering plat restrictions that would make the property off-limits to lounges, automobile sales, light manufacturing or mobile home parks.

"No one is more protective than we are," said Jones, a grandson of the late Jones Valley namesake Carl T. Jones. "We live here too; we're not a developer from out of town.

"We're going to do whatever we can to make it aesthetically pleasing," he said.

Members of The Ledges homeowners' association have expressed concerns about additional traffic from the proposed shopping center on Ledges Drive, said Jones, but the tone is "softer" than when the family developed a Kohl's department store in the same general area.

The new shopping center would have three entrances on Carl T. Jones Drive – each aligned with roads leading into Valley Bend at Jones Farm – and a fourth entrance from Ledges Drive.

Jones said a traffic study by Skipper Consulting found Carl. T. Jones Drive is "more than adequate to service this development, plus quite a bit more."

The Huntsville Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the rezoning request at its Dec. 17 meeting, which starts at 5 p.m. on the ground floor of City Hall, 308 Fountain Circle.