Developer and broker Tab Cornelison is betting they'll also come for smaller specialty stores and eateries, such as cafes and delis. He is building a 15,000-square-foot shopping and restaurant complex at the site of an old industrial building that sits on three-quarters of an acre at 1154 S. 300 West.

Once primarily an industrial area, the 300 West corridor is developing into a major retail destination, attracting shoppers from throughout Salt Lake County. Costco, Home Depot, R.C. Willey and Wal-Mart already are there. Sam's Club and Lowe's are building new stores. Target is trying to find enough land to join them.

Cornelison envisions a retail complex with shops and restaurants. He is convinced his development will do well after watching the success of the area's other big-box stores, which made major investments to be along 300 West.

Wal-Mart, for example, invested in a parking garage that can accommodate many more cars than a parking lot - but is much more expensive. Retailers invest in such a costly structure only if they are convinced the store is in an area that can provide an above-average return on the investment, Cornelison said.

Home-improvement retailer Lowe's purchased nearly a dozen different parcels to assemble the 12 1/2 acres it needed to build its new store between 1300 South and 1400 South.

Tom Cook of commercial brokerage Commerce CRG said that even though the big stores have prospered along 300 West, Cornelison's proposed development represents a big risk.

Unlike a similar shopping and restaurant development proposed for the Marmalade area near Salt Lake City's capitol, there are not many homes within walking distance of Cornelison's center.

Shopping areas - like The Gateway shopping center in downtown Salt Lake City - benefit to some degree from being a short drive away from, or within walking or biking distance of, numerous homes or apartments.

Most people who shop along the 300 West corridor come in cars from communities farther away. And they have options for shopping other than at big-box stores.

Just west of the Delta Center along 300 West, for instance, The Gateway has dozens of specialty shops, restaurants, theater and other attractions.

"The question is, will people drive to the area around 1100 South and 300 West for anything else other than big box development," Cook wondered. Cornelison, he added, "is going to find out the answer to that question."

lesley@sltrib.com