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Plan calls for Lowe's store
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET, Times Staff Writer INVERNESS -- Let the home improvement wars begin. A developer has submitted a conceptual plan for a 101,000-square-foot Lowe's home improvement store on the outskirts of Inverness, just west of the future Wal-Mart Supercenter site on State Road 44. The site is the same 30 acres where Home Depot once planned to build a store -- that is, until the souring economy forced the home improvement giant to drop plans for 25 new stores in the fall. Now the Sofran Group has a contract to buy the property from Curtis Rich and Diana Marcum with the hope of pitching the site to Lowe's or another big box store. "(The developer) is negotiating with Lowe's, but at this point they haven't finished the negotiations," Marcum said. A spokesman for Lowe's did not return a call for comment Thursday. County planners received a conceptual drawing this week showing a Lowe's with 525 parking spaces and two outparcels along SR 44, with 9.4 acres left over for another retailer. Traffic to both Lowe's and the Wal-Mart Supercenter would use a single access point on SR 44 with a traffic signal, according to the plans. The drawing is for discussion purposes, county Community Development director Chuck Dixon said. No one has applied yet for permits for this project, he said. At a glance, Dixon sees one problem with the design. "Basically, it doesn't meet the big box ordinance," he said, referring to the Citrus County ordinance requiring extra landscaping and more architectural features for retail buildings larger than 25,000 square feet. "It's just a box with some parking shown and no landscaping shown, no features that would indicate it's been designed in accordance with the large retail standards," Dixon said. If Lowe's wants to move forward, it needs to revise its design in the next few months to coordinate a shared SR 44 access point with the Wal-Mart Supercenter. Wal-Mart just submitted its revised building permit application and hopes to start construction on its 203,662-square-foot supercenter soon, Dixon said. In recent years, Home Depot and Lowe's have locked horns in a battle for home improvement supremacy. Home Depot is the leading retailer, but Lowe's aggressive expansion plan calls for opening 123 stores this year. Its sales last year topped $22-billion, making it the 14th largest retailer of any kind in the country. -- Bridget Hall Grumet can be reached at 860-7303 or bhall@sptimes.com.
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