Drive along Highway 29 past Founders Terrace and you'll see it now: a four-story building with a rooftop deck, underground parking, and a coffee nook glowing through the lobby windows. Larsen Orchard Terrace opened to its first residents back in April, and on June 18 the village made it official with a ribbon cutting. About 40 percent of the 66 units were leased by that point. The four ground-floor retail spaces, the ones meant to finally give Centennial Centre a storefront to walk to, still don't have names on the doors.
That gap between what's filled and what isn't is the actual story right now. Hobart has talked about a walkable downtown for years. This is the first building where you can stand on the sidewalk and see exactly what that means, and exactly what's still missing.
A Corner You Already Recognize
The building sits at the corner of Larsen Orchard Terrace and Founders Terrace, just east of D2 Sports Pub, a spot most Hobart residents have driven past dozens of times without knowing what was coming. It's a $16.5 million project built by Bayland Buildings, the same company that has quietly filled in a lot of Centennial Centre's commercial ground over the past several years.
What's already there: a fitness center, a club room, that sky deck, and in-unit features like quartz countertops and stainless appliances that put the building's rents in a $1,275 to $2,070 range depending on unit size. What's not there yet: any indication of who's taking the four retail bays on the ground floor. Bayland's leadership said back at the November 2024 groundbreaking that there was already strong interest in the commercial spaces. Nearly two years later, that interest still hasn't turned into a name on a door.
Why The Village Put Money Into This
Hobart's village administrator, Aaron Kramer, didn't undersell the project when it opened. He put it near the top of everything happening in Centennial Centre right now.
"The wow factor on this project has to be one or two in Centennial Centre. This is a great project."
That enthusiasm came with a number attached. The village provided about $1.4 million in incentives to help support the development, the kind of tax increment financing that Hobart has used across its Centennial Centre district to pull commercial and mixed-use projects toward Highway 29 instead of letting them scatter. Bayland's CEO, Chad Calmes, has been consistent about what the incentive was buying: not just apartments, but a genuine attempt at a walkable downtown for a village that has mostly grown as wide lots and small farms rather than a town square.
Whether four empty storefronts count as walkable yet is a fair question. Whether they will by next spring is the one worth watching.
What's Already Walkable, Even Without The Storefronts
The retail bays being empty doesn't mean the corner is dead. Residents moving into Larsen Orchard Terrace are already close enough to walk to Maplewood Meats and a nearby coffee shop, and Thornberry Creek at Oneida is close enough to be a selling point in the building's own marketing. None of that required the new storefronts to open. It just means the storefronts are filling in a gap between things that were already there, not creating a district from nothing.
That's consistent with how the rest of Centennial Centre has grown. A few minutes away, the Marketplace District has slowly added service businesses rather than retail: Trout Creek Veterinary Center, EMT International, Synergy Sports Performance. A new multi-tenant retail building broke ground in the Centennial Business Park with a targeted completion in summer 2026, adding another 12,000 square feet of commercial space to the corridor. None of these are restaurants or shops in the traditional downtown sense. They're the connective tissue of a business park that's slowly acquiring a front door.
The piece that could change how easy all of this is to reach: a new Highway 29 interchange, already in development, that would give direct access to Centennial Centre Boulevard. Right now getting to this corner means navigating the existing frontage road system. Once the interchange is in, the calculus for both residents and future retail tenants changes.
The Second Building Nobody Has Seen Yet
Bayland isn't done with this corner. At the ribbon cutting, both Calmes and project executive Brian Peters said the development group has plans for a second building, positioned between Larsen Orchard Terrace and D2 Sports Pub. The exact plan hasn't taken shape yet, but Bayland has previously pointed to a 2027 start date for that next phase.
If the first building was the test of demand, the second one is the bet that demand held up. A second phase between an existing apartment complex and an established sports pub would close the physical gap that currently makes this corner feel like a single building with promise rather than a district with momentum.
The Growth This Corner Is Betting On
Empty storefronts are a bet on people showing up to fill them, and Hobart's own numbers back that bet. As of January 1, 2024, the village's estimated population sat at 10,905, a one-year increase of 97 residents and a 6.8 percent jump over the 2020 census count. That's not explosive growth by national standards, but it's steady enough that a developer betting on four retail bays a few years out isn't betting blind. The households are already arriving. The question the empty storefronts raise is whether local retail keeps pace with rooftops, or whether residents keep driving to Green Bay and Ashwaubenon for the services this corner was supposed to bring closer to home.
What This Means If You Live Here
None of this requires a resident to do anything. You don't need to move, buy, or sell to have an opinion about whether the four empty bays at Larsen Orchard Terrace get filled by a coffee shop, a salon, or something nobody's guessed yet. But if you've been driving past this corner wondering what's actually happening there, here's the honest answer: the housing part is done and filling up. The retail part is the one piece of the walkable downtown promise that hasn't been delivered yet, nearly two years after Bayland first said there was already interest in those four spaces.
Watch this corner over the next two to three quarters. If those four spaces get named before the second building breaks ground, Hobart will have its first real answer to what a finished version of Centennial Centre's downtown looks like. If they don't, the story becomes less about retail and more about how much demand this corridor can actually support once the newness wears off.
Either way, this is a neighborhood in the middle of becoming something, not one that's already arrived. That's usually the more interesting stage to be paying attention to.
If you're curious how growth like this at Centennial Centre could affect home values or timing in Hobart, or you just want a local read on what's changing in the village, Matt Jorgenson Real Estate is happy to talk through it. Book a consultation whenever you're ready.