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Lowe's set to open at Mission Bell
The opening is scheduled for Halloween. Nearby residents fear more traffic problems.
By AMBER MOBLEY
Published October 15, 2006
CARROLLWOOD - Lowe's is scheduled to open at Mission Bell Shopping Center on Halloween. The home improvement giant will be the strip mall's newest anchor since Kmart closed its doors at 12901 N Dale Mabry Highway more than a year ago. In late 2004, Lowe's announced plans to locate at the 22-acre shopping center on N Dale Mabry between W Fletcher Avenue and Stall Road. A pioneer strip mall in the early days of Carrollwood, Mission Bell Shopping Center was once the hub of Carrollwood, offering residents their first multiscreen movie theater. The theater and several other tenants, including Kmart, have closed. The Lowe's superstore will give the shopping center a shot in the arm by offering 116,000 square feet of retail sales space stocked with 40,000 different items as well as a garden center. A store this big is on average an $18.5-million investment for Lowe's Companies Inc., which boasts 1,275 home improvement stores in 49 states. It will create an estimated 175 new jobs. Still, time will tell whether the new store will be more trick or more treat. Folks in residential neighborhoods near the new store worry that it will worsen area traffic congestion. The Lowe's has been a hot topic during many public meetings throughout the past year about traffic control in Original Carrollwood and Carrollwood Village. County staffers anticipated that Lowe's would change local traffic patterns. So, taking the Lowe's into account, the county continues to plan what devices to use to slow speeders on neighborhood streets in Original Carrollwood and on the west side of N Dale Mabry in Carrollwood Village. In late July and early August, Original Carrollwood homeowners voted on the county's traffic control plan for their neighborhood. The county has received slightly more than half of the roughly 1,900 ballots it sent out. Of the ballots it received, nearly 58 percent wanted the traffic calming plan to be approved. Hillsborough County's Traffic Services Division tentatively plans to report ballot results at the County Commission's Nov. 1 meeting for board consideration. Amber Mobley can be reached at amobley@sptimes.com or 813 269-5311.
[Last modified October 14, 2006, 21:56:34]
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