Itâs not the kind of opening R.H. Ledbetter Properties had hoped for at the new East Bend shopping center, but given the nature of 2020, the developers are happy to have four of the new retailers open. The pandemic has delayed most of the tenants who signed on to the development on the former Kmart site on Hicks Drive. But at this point, everyone who signed up to open in Rome is still committed to the project âObviously we would have preferred to have opened the whole shopping center at the same time,â said Bob Ledbetter Jr. Still, the trickle opening this fall, spreading out into 2021, might not be such a bad thing in the long run.