HENRIETTA, N.Y. (WROC) — The Marketplace Mall is about to be revived with a brand new 330,000 square foot University of Rochester orthopedic center in the old Sears space.

Wilmorite representatives are excited to see this project come to life and said this is the future of malls. Jonathan Dower is the vice president of leasing for Wilmorite.

“Originally you build traditional anchors, your Macy’s, your JC Penney, and you put them in a project just how Marketplace was built and you put the small shops between the mall and they create the traffic and everything flows well. The only thing that’s changed is the definition of what those anchors are,” said Dower.

He said the new orthopedic center will compliment the existing stores in the mall and generate traffic with the new patients, families, and employees.

“Depending what uses they have closest to the mall we’ll have like retail tenants. So if their patients are in for a procedure say it’s sports related we’ll have a Foot Locker close to that space.”

He said they’re also in the process of finding unique food, entertainment, and lodging tenants for the new area and the Macy’s wing.

“Not just ones that have seven locations in Rochester things that will be unique to this area,” said Dower. “One of them you might see a very large entrainment concept that could be going in.”

Regarding the empty storefronts in Marketplace, Dower said it always gets worse before it gets better.

“It has to, it’s just the nature of the beast there is a lot of interest there’s a lot of intrigue of what’s happening. Once this opens the first phase of it opens you’ll start to see more of the small shop spaces fill up.”

The project will open in phases. The first phase includes office space and will open this summer. Everything else will be completed by the end of 2022. The project will create 300 construction jobs.