3 new grocery stores coming to Chattanooga, and they may be Wal-Marts

Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market

Wal-Mart is expanding in Fort Oglethorpe and Dalton and probably in Chattanooga as well next year.

But not with more behemoth, 100,000-square-foot Supercenters that the world’s largest retailer has built over the past three decades.

These days, the retailer is building smaller, convenient 40,000-square-foot stores, known as Neighborhood Markets.

And they’re not going where Wal-Mart usually builds.

Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets, first introduced in 1998, are only one-fourth the size of a typical Walmart Supercenter in the United States and offer about 28,000 grocery items.