A worker pushes shopping carts in front of a Wal-Mart store in La Habra, Calif. The world’s largest retailer is testing its own mobile payment system that will allow shoppers to pay with any major credit or debit card or its own store gift card through its app at the cash register.
Walmart will open its newest Neighborhood Market store next Wednesday at 7:30 a.m. at Middle Valley Road and Thrasher Pike.
The new grocery outlet will be the sixth of seven new grocery stores Walmart plans to add to the Chattanooga market in the past year.
Josh Blevins, the manager of the 41,000-square-foot grocery and pharmacy store, said the new store will employ 95 workers. Hamilton County commissioners voted 5-4 last March to approve a rezoning to allow for the new Neighborhood Market in Middle Valley to be built.
Wal-Mart’s Neighborhood Market grocery stores have gas stations and pharmacies with drive-through windows. Other Neighborhood Markets have already opened in Fort Oglethorpe and Dalton, Ga., and in Hixson, East Brainerd and East Ridge. Later this month, Walmart plans to open another Neighborhood Market store at Shallowford and Moore Roads.
A ribbon cutting ceremony for the new store is planned Wednesday morning with speeches from store and community leaders and free samples from vendors.
Jimmy John’s unit reopens downtown
The Jimmy John’s restaurant in downtown Chattanooga has reopened with nearly twice as much space as when it temporarily closed on Dec. 1.
The local franchisee for the sandwich shop chain reopened the remodeled restaurant at Market and 10th Streets on Tuesday after enlarging the restaurant with additional space in the first floor of the EPB headquarters building. The downtown restaurant originally opened in 2009 and was expanded over the past five weeks to accommodate its growing lunch crowd.
The Jimmy John’s chain, which began in 1983 and is headquartered in Champaign, Ill, claims it offers “the world’s greatest gourmet sandwiches.” The chain has more than 2,000 locations in 43 states, including a separately owned franchise unit that opened two years ago in Hixson.
Advance Auto adds 200 jobs in La Vergne
Advance Auto Parts announced Wednesday it will will invest $24.5 million and create more than 200 new jobs at a new distribution center in Rutherford County.
The 450,000-square-foot facility to be built in La Vergne, Tenn., will provide parts and products distribution and logistics services to Advance’s company-operated stores, commercial customers and independently owned Carquest stores in the Southeast. Construction will begin during the first quarter of 2016, and the facility is expected to be operational by mid-2017.
“Having the right parts available in our stores at the right time is an important part of our service promise,” Advance Auto Parts President and Interim Chief Executive Officer George Sherman said. “The location of the new distribution center in Rutherford County will allow us to serve our stores and customers better than anyone else with improved supply chain capabilities.”
TAG builds center on former mall site
A Memphis-based freight truck dealership is planning to build $20 million center on the former Mall of Memphis property it recently purchased for $3.9 million.
TAG Truck Center President Tommy Earl said the company will consolidate its four Memphis-area operations on 40 acres bounded by American Way and I-240. The company is hoping to start construction on the project this summer, with the new center being able to open in 2017.
Johnson Development Associates bought the property for $2.7 million in 2012. The mall was razed nearly 12 years ago.