Lake Hills residents fanned Oscar Del Moro with questions surrounding progress developing and leasing the neighborhood’s shopping center last Thursday, the redevelopment of which is nearing completion after more than a decade.

“We want you to spend your money here and we really need you to spend your money here, after all this time,”  said Del Moro of Cosmos Development and Administration, which purchased the property in 1998.

Del Moro said Cosmos had no real plans for the shopping center at the time of its purchase, except to lock down an urban piece of real estate that had development potential and a ready-built environment around it. The city approached Cosmos in 2000 — part of its push to revitalize failing neighborhood shopping centers — and a plan was solidified by 2006. Bellevue covered half of a $20,000 study of development options early in the process.

A new Lake Hills Library was a top priority for the city, Del Moro said, and became the first tenant of Lake Hills Village in 2010, its $3.2 million price tag covered by a $172 million capital bond approved by voters in 2004 for upgrades to and expansion of the King County Library System facilities.

Shopping center retailers were phased out during years of redevelopment, with the understanding a number of them would be invited back once Lake Hills Village was ready for business again.

“We offered that to a lot of the tenants, but the reality is when you start disrupting the area – moving and changing things – it becomes very difficult,” Del Moro said.

Residents were eager to hear which businesses would be occupying the 70,000 square feet of retail space during last Thursday’s Lake Hills Community Association meeting, one of the greatest desires being a grocery store in the neighborhood.

Jim Maloney of Cosmos Development said the company had attracted the interest of a grocer, but the neighborhood was determined to not be urban enough.

“We said, ‘This is as urban as you’re going to get,’ ” Maloney said.

There is roughly 40,000 square feet of grocery space tucked under the library, with a large underground loading dock, Del Moro said, keeping the supermarket’s business from interfering with plaza space.

“We took the back side of the grocery store and we buried it underground,” he said, adding the yet-unknown supermarket will have adequate frontage at 156th Avenue Southeast. “We’d like to have a bank, but we don’t want a drive-through,” he added, which has caused problems for a number of bankers. “We really think a drive-through defeats the purpose of what we’re trying to do.”

Lake Hills residents questioned why they were holding last Thursday’s meeting in vacant office space at the shopping center, which Del Moro explained had to do with first constructing the library, then losing parking during  later construction phases that was prohibitive for employers.

“We couldn’t push the marketing because we didn’t have the parking,” he said of the 44,000 square feet of office space at Lake Hills Village.

There will be 470 underground parking spaces for residents, office employees and other business, but just 176 in the retail plaza in the center of Lake Hills Village. European specialty market Gastronom – formerly in the Crossroads – reopened at the shopping center last week. A “Chinese Seafood Noodle” will be one of the sit-down restaurants there, said Maloney, adding Cosmos is in discussions with several more food and dining businesses. Silhouette Organic Beauty Lounge — a full hair and eyelash extension salon — is also under construction.

“We really want people to walk,” said Del Moro, adding he envisions having a neighborhood market in the plaza.

They will also be able to walk to a large community stage on the upper plaza, currently under construction along Lake Hills Boulevard.

Seventy-one apartment units above retail have already been filled, Del Moro said, and nine duplexes — 18 units — are under construction to the west.