The wheels are turning again for a residential and commercial development approved five years ago for the corner of Greenville Loop Road and Oleander Drive, with a retail component recently added to plans that also call for extensive roadway improvements.

Some of the details of Summerwalk, a project originally expected to include 20 single-family dwellings, 120 townhomes and 80,000 square feet of office space on land bordered by Oleander and Greenville Loop, will change if city officials approve developer Howard Penton’s rezoning request.

The request would scale back the office space to 62,400 square feet on the top floor of two, two-story buildings (originally planned to be three stories) with 31,200 square feet for retail tenants on the bottom floors, Penton said Wednesday.

Penton, owner of Penton Development, said in his opinion, the office market is still not strong enough to support 80,000 square feet of offices in Summerwalk. “But there would be more interest in providing some limited neighborhood retail at that location on the first floor,” he said.

The rezoning would add business services, banking services, standard and carry-out restaurants (limited to coffee shops and ice cream shops), microbreweries, retail sales, medical and professional offices and personal services as permitted uses for the commercial component of Summerwalk.

“In our community meeting there was a lot of positive response for the retail uses,” Penton said of a session to discuss Summerwalk that was held Jan. 20 for adjacent property owners.

Penton owns 12 acres of what will be Summerwalk’s green space and has 14 acres under contract to purchase from the owners, the Johnson family. Broker Hank Miller, a senior vice president at Cape Fear Commercial, is representing the seller.

Penton is also the developer of Shinnwood West, a 94-lot single family development on 45 acres near the intersection of Greenville Loop and Shinnwood roads.

Additional changes to Summerwalk’s plans of five years ago include scaling back the residential numbers from 20 single-family houses to 19 and from 120 townhomes to 104 and breaking the schedule for roadway improvements, which will be completed and paid for by Penton Development, into two phases.

Traffic congestion at the intersection of Oleander Drive and Greenville Loop Road, particularly at peak hours in the morning and afternoon, has long been a concern for residents and workers who have to traverse the busy area daily. The first phase of road work, required to be complete before any of Summerwalk’s homes could be occupied, would mainly involve the widening of and addition of turn lanes to Greenville Loop Road to ease the congestion.

The city and the N.C. Department of Transportation recently signed off on an updated Traffic Impact Analysis completed by Penton Development and presented in December.

The second phase of road improvements, mainly involving Oleander Drive, would coincide with construction of Summerwalk’s commercial component. Breaking the work up into two parts makes the improvements financially feasible, Penton said.

“We can’t get it all done at one time. We can do it in phases,” he said. “And it will work, and it will improve the traffic situation for everyone on Greenville Loop Road.”

Penton said if the rezoning requests are approved, he hopes to begin work on the first phase of Summerwalk in fall of this year, with residential units ready for sale by spring or summer 2016 and the entire development completed by 2018.

The Wilmington Planning Commission will consider the Summerwalk rezoning requests during its meeting at 6 p.m. Feb. 4 in the City Council Chambers at City Hall, 102 N. Third St.