Entertainment venues and small stores are to be part of the new master plan a team of top planners is formulating for the city-owned Tradition Center for Commerce.

Nine experts from the Urban Land Institute, in a variety of planning specialties, is examining how Port St. Lucie can maximize the value of the 1,161 acres in the Tradition Jobs Corridor along Interstate 95.

The panel is to will study the land, analyze the existing six-year-old plans, brainstorm strategies for new initiatives and present recommendations to the City Council on Friday.

The City Council hired the national nonprofit earlier this year for $135,000.

Urban Land Institute panelists met with city officials and dozens of local real estate and development professionals Monday during a reception at the Civic Center.

Whether the existing plans for 3.7 million square feet of retail space remain viable in the age of online sales is among the issues the panel is expected to address, said Wes McCurry, city community redevelopment director.

Instead of big-box stores, new plans likely would include “more boutique, more destination and entertainment-oriented” retail development, McCurry said.

“I think there will always be a need for brick-and-mortar stores,” McCurry said in an interview. “Online sales are definitely a challenge for the retail industry, but we’re seeing good activity in that smaller-scale retail space.

“It’s not just about showing up to a department store and seeing what they got, because you can do that online,” McCurry said. “So now I think the retail industry is starting to look at ways to innovate and create experiences for their shoppers.”

Construction already is underway on POP Stroke, a golf entertainment facility on Village Parkway in Tradition.

The city also is seeking a public-private partnership for the development of a recreational area, such as a water park or aquatics complex, in the jobs corridor, according to the city.

“I think we are pretty well-positioned for some type of entertainment facility like that,” McCurry said. “It’s long been identified as a need in the city’s citizen surveys and Parks and Rec surveys.”

The planning panel also is expected to make recommendations for updating existing plans for 4.5 million square feet of industrial space, 2.5 million square feet of research-and-office space and another 2.4 million square feet of office space, McCurry said.

A large regional mall initially planned on Becker Road on the southern end of the jobs corridor probably will fall by the wayside, City Manager Russ Blackburn said in an interview.

“I think the kind of retail that was originally envisioned will change,” Blackburn said. “We know that there aren’t any new malls being built. It may not be a mall anymore and we don’t think it will be. But what would go there?”

The panel will “give us an idea of what they think the future could look like, based on today’s market trends and what they see in the future,” Blackburn said.

An Urban Land Institute panel helped the city formulate plans for development west of I-95, including the the jobs corridor, in February 2004.

Institute panel chairman John Walsh said some of the nation’s leading planning experts will help Port St. Lucie get the best value from the jobs-corridor land.

“You can’t buy this team,” said Walsh, CEO of TIG Real Estate Services Inc., of Frisco, Texas. “There’s not a consulting company that could put together this team for any price.”

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