A long-awaited Liberty Township food hall, entertainment venue and outdoor space will break ground in August, drawing on inspiration from time the developer, a former Procter & Gamble executive, spent in Central America.
Liberty Collective will open in spring 2024 on a 3.4-acre plot at the intersection of Wyandot and Liberty lanes across from Lakota East High School.
Mike Ewers, president and developer of Liberty Collective, described the location as the backyard of the community – the same community he argued is starved for something different. “There’s a lot of chains around here. It feels good to spearhead an initiative like this,” he said.
The two-story, 18,000-square-foot building will feature five restaurant concepts and a dessert spot from a range of aspiring chef-entrepreneurs on three-year leases. Ewers wouldn’t disclose any signees but said the initial concepts will include Asian, farm-to-table American and pizza.
“This gives chefs an opportunity to start their journey without a huge cash infusion, sort of like an incubator for restaurant concepts,” Ewers told the Courier. “The biggest barrier for aspiring restauranteurs is capital. Here, they’ll pay a nominal fee to get into a fully stocked kitchen and get off the ground running.”
Ewers hopes the chefs won’t come back after their original leases.
“I don’t mean that in a negative way,” he said. “I want them to build their brands and business so they can go out, do brick-and-mortar and launch their own restaurants. That’s what success looks like.”
Visitors will order the food walk-up style, sort of like ordering from an array of indoor food trucks with shared seating. A stage will allow for year-round performances inside the hall. There will be two traditional in-house bars – one on the first floor and one on the second-floor mezzanine overlooking the hall. A third in-house space at the entrance will be run as a coffee/pastry bar in the morning before converting into a bourbon/wine bar in the evening.
Ewers turned to Denver-based interior designer Eli Hariton to give the food hall a trendy-industrial feel. Hariton has drawn fame as a contestant on HGTV series “Design Star: Next Gen.”
Outside, the venue will feature five sand volleyball courts, bocce ball courts, table tennis and an outdoor movie area. Ewers said a full entertainment strategy is in the works, including family movie nights and partnerships for volleyball tournaments.
Ewers, a Liberty Township resident himself, left Procter & Gamble to form several pharmaceutical startups. He said the idea for Liberty Collective grew from trips with his wife to Belize the couple started taking in 2020. Those trips first led them to create Truck Stop Belize, a shipping-container entertainment complex whose main clientele is American tourists and expats.
“We wanted to bring that concept to the states, and we started to look at major cities, but we thought there was no better place than our own back yard,” Ewers said.
The Liberty Township Board of Trustees approved a zoning change for Liberty Collective, then dubbed Liberty Truck Stop, in February 2022. But the development soon hit bumpy waters.
“We probably picked the worst possible time to build anything, coming out of Covid, with supply chain issues and interest rate hikes. There was a lot to deal with. It was a tricky environment, but we stayed steadfast,” Ewers said. “It was the demand from the community that really kept this project alive. We had to see it through. It just took a bit longer than anticipated, but we used that time to fine-tune the design, and we’re really pleased with what we’re bringing to the community.”
Ewers billed the food hall as a family-oriented experience. With that in mind, he said the proximity to Lakota East High School is no accident – it never hurts, he said, to have 2,900 students a tee shot away.
“There’s going to be something for everybody at Liberty Collective,” he said.
The groundbreaking will take place on Aug. 1.
