I recently went down to Moore and was impressed with hoe this great shopping development has grown. It looks a lot like the strip mall up on Memorial, only this fits in better, because it's a true suburb. Anyways, here's an update.

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"Limited vacancy: New hotel, restaurant and two other potential deals could all but fill up RiverWalk in Moore

By Shelly Hickman

writers@okcbusiness.com

Building a hotel in south Moore may have been regarded as something of a gamble five years ago when Ron Wilhite was in the beginning stages of RiverWalk.

Now, with such names as Kohl’s, Gordman’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Applebee’s and IHOP doing business in the development along I-35 -- and with 100,000 vehicles passing by that development every day, it seems a foregone conclusion a hotel venture would be a success.

Wilhite said a full-service hotel would break ground at RiverWalk within the next four to five weeks, but that he wasn’t at liberty to say who would own it.

He did say it was “reportedly going to be a LaQuinta” and owned by Oklahoma businessmen with experience running hotels.

It will be located at the entrance of the interstate from the RiverWalk development and directly across from American Bank.

“They should be starting within the next few weeks,” he said. “It will be a five-story hotel. There probably won’t be a dining room because of IHOP and some of the other restaurants close to it, but I’m not sure if they’ve decided that yet.”

Wilhite said the hotel should include about 80 rooms, meeting rooms and a swimming pool.

“We’ve always wanted a hotel on the property. With the accessibility to the interstate, we always thought that it would be a very good location,” he said. “It will really do well.”

A hotel won’t be the only entity breaking ground at RiverWalk in the coming weeks. The Ryan’s restaurant group will be constructing a restaurant under its Fire Mountain brand there, as well.

The 10,000 square foot eatery will face I-35 next to Russell Stover Candies, Wilhite said, and should be open for business by late spring or early summer of 2005.

Officials at Ryan’s Greer, S.C., headquarters could not be reached for comment. The company operates a Fire Mountain restaurant at 6500 S.W. 3rd in Oklahoma City, and also has restaurants in Ardmore, Lawton and Tulsa.

Wilhite said he is negotiating two more contracts for the RiverWalk development but declined to share with whom. He did say one contract involves 2.75 acres facing I-35 and the other is for 15 acres south of Gordmans.

“I will say the 15-acre will be a retail center and the purchaser on the frontage road might do a combination of retail and some restaurant,” he said.

If Wilhite closes those two deals, he will have less than four acres of land left in the 120-acre RiverWalk development.

While it has taken about five years to get to this point in the project, he said this last phase “has gone pretty fast and just goes to show Moore needed commercial facilities.”

The developer, who also developed part of the retail corridor south of Sooner Fashion Mall and south of Main Street on the Ed Noble Parkway in Norman, said he imagined it wouldn’t be much longer before his work RiverWalk was completed.

He hinted he already had his hands in the beginning stages of another project but he wouldn’t confirm the nature of the project or where it would be located.

“I have to kind of keep that to myself right now,” Wilhite said, indicating his new project might take off in about six months. “I love developing commercial land, though.”