Construction crews clear site for Wal-Mart store planned at Highway 58 and North Hickory Valley Road. Wal-Mart bought more than 21 acres last month for the new store.
Wal-Mart will soon begin construction on another supercenter in the Chattanooga market - a 155,000-square-foot store on Highway 58 designed to serve the growing Harrison area.
The world's largest retailer paid nearly $2.4 million last month to buy more than 21 acres at the corner of Highway 58 and North Hickory Valley Road and has begun to clear the site for building construction to begin this spring. The new store - the 17th full-size Wal-Mart store in a 30-mile radius of Chattanooga - is scheduled to open in early 2017 and employ up to 300 full- and part-time workers.
"We have just put this new store out to bid and we expect to start construction soon," said Anne Hatfield, director of communications at Wal-Mart's headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. "Once construction begins, it typically takes 10 to 12 months to complete the store."
Wal-Mart's newest outlet on Highway 58 is one of 50 to 60 supercenters Wal-Mart plans to open in the current fiscal year - a building pace far below Wal-Mart's historic construction level.Wal-Mart announced in January it was closing 269 stores this year around the globe, including Tennessee stores in Nashville, Chapel Hill, Loretto, Cornerstone and Dover, Tenn.
But in Chattanooga, Wal-Mart has continued to expand its presence, adding seven of its grocery-only Neighborhood Market stores around the region over the past year. Company officials said Wal-Mart is trying to successfully reach the entire Chattanooga market - a region where Wal-Mart has had success - while limiting operations in some markets where the retailer has not fared as well.
"Actively managing our portfolio of assets is essential to maintaining a healthy business," Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMilon said earlier this year in outlining the retailer's building plans. "It's important to remember that we'll open well more than 300 stores around the world next year. So we are committed to growing, but we are being disciplined about it."
Highway 58 previously housed Chattanooga's first Kmart store a couple of miles south of the new Wal-Mart site, but that store closed in 2012 after operating for 35 years.
The Wal-Mart Real Estate Business Trust, the property division of the giant retailer, paid $1.1 million to buy the former Cornerstone Auto Brokers dealership at Highway 58 and Hickory Valley Road and another $1.26 million for adjacent residential and commercial property previously owned by the Frances Cannon family trust.
The Chattanooga-Hamilton Regional Planning Commission agreed a year ago to rezone the site for Wal-Mart.
According to Census Bureau data, there were more than 3,300 housing units in Harrison in 2010 and the average household income was $55,000, which is $11,000 more than the state average. The expansion of the Volkswagen plant a few miles from the new Wal-Mart site in the Enterprise South industrial park - combined with automotive supply plants being built by Gestamp and Yanfeng - will add thousands of jobs in the Harrison and Tyner area.
The new Chattanooga Wal-Mart Supercenter will serve local workers and residents with a full line of groceries, general merchandise, electronics and sporting goods, apparel and household items along witha lawn and garden department and a drive-through pharmacy, Hatfield said. Unlike most of its other supercenters in the region, however, the new Wal-Mart will not have a gas station or automotive service facility.
Hatfield said Wal-Mart will open a hiring center about three months prior to the store opening. Last month, Wal-Mart raised the average pay for its employees to $13.71 an hour, plus benefits.
"At Wal-Mart, once you get in, the opportunities are unparalleled," Hatfield said. "Last year we promoted 170,000 associates - 40 percent of those promotions went to people in their first year with the company. Nationally, 75 percent of the store management team started as hourly associates."
Contact Dave Flessner at dfless ner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.