The developer of Denman Prospect says a supermarket will be open at the local shops by January, likely to be the first one for Molonglo, but still more than a year late.
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Capital Estate Developments managing director Stephen Byron in 2016 said that he was confident the Denman Prospect shops would be opened by late 2017.
But that deadline has come and gone.
The latest announcement is that The Farm at Denman Prospect will open at the Denman Village Shops in January 2019, following a collaboration with Steve Smith, the owner of the Yass Supa IGA.
Denman Prospect director Nick McDonald Crowley said its amended timeline was still on target - the centre to open in 2018, supermarket in early 2019 and the whole centre full occupied and trading by May, 2019.
"Since that time - 2016 - we have needed to amended our timeline, mostly due to planning constraints in gaining the necessary approvals to build a precinct that we are now very proud of,'' he said.
Mr McDonald Crowley said the detail in the fitout was one of the reasons for the delay. The roof-top garden on the medical centre, for example, would be "the largest green roof in Canberra and be planted out with over 60,000 plants and shrubs".
"We would have loved to have these shops open earlier, but we wanted it to be the right design and fit for the precinct,'' he said.
"We know the residents really need some shops and we've done everything to make sure they're in.''
The Farm at Denman Prospect is the largest retail space at the Denman Village Shops which is set below 16 residential terraces. There are also eight specialty shops, a medical centre, a childcare centre, a gym and a cafe. Expressions of interest are currently being accepted for the cafe space.
"They're just starting the fit-outs in some the shops now, glazing is going on the external facade. It's an enormous building and at the moment it's sitting in the middle of a paddock but eventually they'll be a lot of apartments around it.''
Mr McDonald Crowley said the new IGA supermarket would be 1000 square metres, the same size as the supermarket sidelined for the Coombs shops.
"The planning constraints within the ACT limits the local centre to 1000 square metres and the larger, more traditional supermarkets, the Coles, the Woolies, don't have such an appetite for the smaller models anymore,'' Mr McDonald Crowley said.
"We spent a lot of time talking to a lot of IGA and other smaller operators and we're very happy with the way Steve presents his store, particularly in Yass. And he sources his products from slightly different primary producers.
"And he's also wants to be part of the community and he's quite a character and I'm sure people will get to know him. And that's exactly what we want around the shops, that sense of community.''
Meanwhile, it's understood a development application for another shopping centre at Molonglo, on John Gorton Drive at Coombs, will be lodged within a month.
A public consultation session around the proposed Koko Molonglo development was being held tonight, Thursday, from 5.30pm to 7.30pm at Charles Weston School in Coombs.
The proposed Koko centre has room for a 1500 square metre supermarket and it's understood a major retailer is close to signing.
Koko Molonglo is across the road from the separtate Coombs shopping centre, which is yet to open to the public.
The ACT government reduced the size of the supermarket permitted at the then proposed Coombs shopping centre from 1500 square metres to 1000 square metres just a week before the land went to auction in 2015.
The move potentially knocked out bigger players from the deal and arguably made it more difficult for the eventual purchaser of the land, Renato Cervo, to find a tenant for what would be a considerably smaller supermarket.
