Toscana Park: a deli family's lifestyle center

2008–PRESENT · GUMWOOD ROAD AT TOSCANA BOULEVARD

Toscana Park is the corridor's home-grown node — a lifestyle center developed by a restaurant family out of its own ground: the South Bend Tribune's file on Jerry Macri, preserved in the Michiana newspaper catalogue, is a developer's file — headlines on the center's construction ("Fire damage will not delay Toscana Park"), its growing pains before the plan commission, its new eateries, and a sale after which Macri said, "My main goal is the success and the completion of Toscana Park. That will happen." The Macri family's business was Macri's Deli, a Michiana sandwich institution the family's own restaurant copy credits with more than forty years; when the deli closed, the family replaced it with Villa Macri, an Italian restaurant built on what reviewers of the day called "their Villa Toscana property," with Jerry and Margy Macri as owners and their son Gerard as executive chef. Villa Macri opened over the summer of 2008, carrying the deli inside it — Macri's Deli trades within the restaurant still — and the center grew around its own anchor tenant.

The built form the leasing record gives (Bradley Company) is a lifestyle center on Gumwood Road addressed from 7242 to 7424 Gumwood Road, Granger 46530: Villa Macri at 225 Toscana Boulevard, Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza, Vanilla Bean Creamery, Smoothie King, and The Residences at Toscana Park, one hundred high-end apartments behind the retail. United Federal Credit Union names its branch at 7514 Gumwood Road its Toscana Park location. The address record carries the same seam as Heritage Square's: the Residences' own listing prints Mishawaka for a Toscana Boulevard address its marketing describes as "nestled in the heart of Granger," and Villa Macri's address prints both ways in the restaurant directories. The development entity's legal name, and the center's first-phase opening year apart from Villa Macri's documented summer of 2008, are not in the record reached; the want is registered as GAP-BIZ-6. The business fact stands without them: alone among the corridor's nodes, Toscana Park was built by a family firm of the region as an extension of its own restaurant business, and its anchor has never changed hands.

Sources:

1. South Bend Tribune article file on Jerry Macri, catalogued by the Michiana Business Research Library: "New day for Toscana Park" (sale; Macri quotation as printed); "Fire damage will not delay Toscana Park"; "Toscana Park facing growing pains" (Lang, Feeney and Associates before the Plan Commission); "New Toscana eatery"; "Macri's business legacy well known"; "Granger's Villa Macri reflects a family's rich, Italian roots."
2. TripAdvisor review record, January 2009: Villa Macri open "over the summer" (2008); Macri's Deli closed; owners Jerry & Margy Macri; the restaurant built on "their Villa Toscana property."
3. OpenTable listing, Villa Macri Ristorante: 225 Toscana Blvd, Granger, IN 46530; executive chef Gerard Macri; Macri's Deli "serving their famous sandwiches for over 40 years."
4. Bradley Company, Toscana Park land and outlot flyers: 7242 and 7424 Gumwood Rd, Granger 46530; tenant roster as printed; 100 high-end apartments.
5. United Federal Credit Union location record: Toscana Park branch, 7514 Gumwood Road.
6. The Residences at Toscana Park listing: 314 Toscana Blvd, addressed Mishawaka; marketing copy "in the heart of Granger."