Departure of Mountainside Fitness raises questions

It’s likely that Mountainside Fitness isn’t the only business with plans to relocate to Maricopa whose doors won’t be opening here this year.

Jeff Bastian, a new restaurant opening specialist with Peter Piper Inc. of Scottsdale said while the Maricopa store is still on his calendar for a December opening, its more likely that it won’t be serving up jobs or slices of pizza until 2009.

“I don’t really have it on the map for real soon,” he said. “I am hoping for the end of the year, but it might not even be by then.”

He didn’t seem surprised that his fomer soon-to-be-neighbor, Mountainside Fitness for which the shopping center just south of Fry’s Marketplace was to be named, has delayed its development for at least another year (see “Mountainside Fitness backs out”).

“That might be what we are doing as well,” Bastian said. “When they are on the calendar for December, usually when they do that, ones scheduled that far ahead in the year, it means could even be in ’09.”

A representative of Ruby Tuesday, however, said they plan to go ahead with plans for a restaurant in the center.

“We have not published any dates just yet,” said Maura Fry, a project coordinator based in Ruby Tuesday’s corporate offices in Maryville, Tenn..

Fry said she might release more information in about a month.

Goddard School representatives could not be immediately reached for comment regarding whether Mountainside’s closing will affect their plans to open.

Submitted photo