Upscale restaurants with footprints in Arizona and Texas, but none in Ohio, are the targets of Equity, a Hilliard-based developer that is to begin construction next year on a greater-than $100 million, mixed-use development to be known as TruePointe.

“(TruePointe) will change the face of Hilliard,” Steve Wathen, CEO of Equity, told ThisWeek News on July 19.

Equity and its partners are to develop 23.5 acres on the west side of Trueman Boulevard, east of Interstate 270 and about 1,500 feet south of Davidson Road.

The site is immediately south of Equity’s corporate headquarters at 4653 Trueman Boulevard. Equity has nine offices in the United States.

The Hilliard Planning and Zoning Commission on July 14 unanimously approved a modification to the existing planned unit development (PUD) zoning to allow for a mixed-use development that includes restaurants, hotels and residential uses.

Hilliard City Council on Aug. 22 is to consider the recommendation of the planning and zoning commission to approve the PUD modification.

If City Council approves the PUD modification, Wathen said Equity will immediately get to work.

“Mass excavation,” in the arrival of heavy equipment to begin moving earth would begin by the end of the year, he said.

“We expect to start going vertical (with beginning the foundations of buildings) sometime in May (2023),” Wathen said.

TruePointe is not to be built in phases, so if there are no disruptions, the $100-million-plus, mixed-use development on 23.5 acres and encompassing more than 300,000 square feet of office space and hotels and more than 45,000 square feet of retail is to be complete in about two years from the start of construction, Wathen said.

The original PUD was approved in 1998 and called only for office space owing to its frontage along I-270, but that is no longer tenable in today’s market, according to John Talentino, a city planner.

“The idea (in 1998) was to have freeway offices, (but) things have changed. Now, to get development, there must be amenities that include a residential component, restaurants and hotels,” Talentino told commission members.

Equity's proposal for such a development was articulated in 2020.

The restaurants in TruePointe are to be “white-tablecloth” restaurants, many of which have no presence in Ohio, Wathen said.

Wathen would not identify any potential tenant, but allowed Equity in negotiations with tenants that would occupy a majority of the available leases.

Those include restaurants that have locations in the Dallas and Phoenix areas, he said.

TruePointe is to include medical offices.

One health care provider has tendered a letter of intent to occupy 100,000 square feet of office space, Wathen said.

A fitness facility is also likely and would be operated by a manufacturer of fitness equipment making its first foray into the operation of a fitness center, as well as a boutique-style bakery whose ownership includes a professional hockey player in the NHL, Wathen said.

A coffee shop is also a likely tenant, but would not be a chain brand, he said.

“Our goal is to create a development that will be a destination… to have (businesses) here that can only come to Hilliard to frequent,” said Wathen, who moved to Hilliard with his family in 1986.

Wathen said Hilliard has heretofore lacked the kinds of restaurants typically found in communities with the average household income of those in Hilliard.

Further, TruePointe would be well positioned at the “doorstep” of Hilliard as visitors enter the city from I-270.

“We want to make this a destination. If you want to come to these restaurants in central Ohio, you’re going to have to come to TruePointe,” Wathen said.