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Wal-Mart targets space on Old Forest Road
By Conor Reilly
mreilly@newsadvance.com
December 18, 2006
An Old Forest Road shopping center is slated to become a Wal-Mart, according to tenants who were recently informed that the property is close to being sold.
The city’s second Wal-Mart would be built in the Forest Plaza West shopping center, currently home to Isabella’s restaurant, Jazz Street Grill, Mudpuppy’s restaurant and the now vacant Winn-Dixie building.
Tenants were told by the landlord, John Stewart Walker Inc., that the 28-acre shopping center is under contract. The parties have six months to work out details, or the deal falls through.
“I was surprised when I heard it was a Wal-Mart, especially because this is more of a neighborhood area,” said Tom Keane, co-owner of Mudpuppy’s.
Forest Plaza West is owned by George, Lynne and William Walker, according to city records. The city values the property at just over $1.8 million.
Keane said the landlord gave no specific dates regarding when the sale might take place.
“I personally think they need to resolve the traffic issues,” Keane said.
If the deal is finalized, the new Wal-Mart would be built just a few miles from the recently approved 130-acre Lakeside Centre retail complex, which will include a Target store.
The Wal-Mart would add urgency to city plans to ease congestion at the intersection of Lakeside Drive and the Lynchburg Expressway.
The city plans to spend between $15 million and $30 million to fix the intersection, and hopes to have the project finished by the time Lakeside Centre opens in several years.
SuperTarget is a chain of hypermarkets that are about 175,000 square ft. (16,000 m²). Like Target Greatland, SuperTarget features double entrances on one story stores; some also have between the double entrances a merchandise loading lane as a prominent feature of the building. The store logo often spells "Super" in green cursive, but recently, newer ones are signed in red block letters that match the Target font. They carry everything a Target or a Target Greatland does in addition to a grocery store (including meat and poultry, baked goods, delicatessen, frozen foods, dairy products, garden produce and fresh seafood). Many SuperTargets may also feature a Starbucks Coffee shop, a Pizza Hut Express, a Taco Bell Express, Jamba Juice, a pharmacy, a portrait studio, a one-hour photo processing lab, an optical store, or a Wells Fargo Bank. Unlike many other hypermarkets in the United States (such as Wal-Mart Supercenters and Meijer), SuperTargets are not continuously open.
In the past, some SuperTargets featured an E*TRADE trading station instead of a Wells Fargo Bank. However, in June 2003, E*TRADE decided to remove all E*TRADE branches from their SuperTarget locations[23] without advance notice. This sudden move was not initiated by Target Corporation. Mitchell Caplan, E*TRADE's CEO, said that "We were not able to make it into a profitable distribution channel...[w]e're better off exiting." E*TRADE also sent a letter of notification to their customers informing them about this change.
The first SuperTarget opened in Omaha, Nebraska in 1995, and the second SuperTarget opened in Lawrence, Kansas later that same year.[24] Currently, Target operates 177 SuperTarget stores in 21 U.S. states.[19]
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