The Covington City Council unanimously approved the rezoning of property on the corner of Alcovy Road and Highway 142 for a new retail center in its Sept. 18 meeting.

Currently, the 5.486-acre piece of property sits undeveloped, but Southpoint Land Company has other plans.

The developer plans to bring multi-tenant buildings that will bring commercial, retail and restaurants to the area.

Eric Johansen, of Universal Planning and Development, represented Southpoint Land Company in the rezoning.

Johansen said the rezoning of the property was the first step in the process of building the retail center. Without the rezoning, tenants for the buildings have not been completely convinced.

“It’s hard to go out and market a site for specific users until you have the zoning,” he said. “So, provided we are successful in a rezoning, we are already talking to tenants that would be there. These would tenants that some of which you already have flavors of in the city and some of which I think you would welcome in with open arms.”

Johansen called the project a “sister site” to the Covington Town Center project which will be located across the street.

“We do believe that our site will not be a competitor of the development across the street, Covington Town Center, but we do believe it will be a compliment to it,” he said. “We believe we will get out of the ground first so the people will want to be in this area. We’ll set the bar high and set the trends of what will locate to our site.”