Lowe's renews bid for store near SR 54

The home improvement chain's proposal would create about 175 jobs.

By CHUIN-WEI YAP
Published July 13, 2007

LAND O'LAKES - Site plans for a Lowe's Home Improvement store have arrived in county offices, reviving the company's push to add a third Lowe's to Pasco.

The plans show a 166,000-square-foot store and garden center to be built on one of the last remaining patches of empty land in the area around State Road 54 and U.S. 41.

Maureen Rich, a Lowe's spokeswoman, said that's the bigger version of its two types of stores, akin to a SuperTarget or a Wal-Mart Supercenter in size.

Informally called "Super Lowe's," each of such stores are typically an $18.5-million investment for the company and bring 175 jobs.

Apparently conscious of the county's recent push to soften the boxy appearance of such giant stores, the plans filed last week show the proposed store pushed well behind a landscaped front of wetland preserve and a row of trees along SR 54.

It's been almost exactly two years since North Carolina-based Lowe's first signed a $2.7-million contract for the 52-acre property, smack between a sheriff's substation and Encore RV park.

The site is already zoned for commercial use.

Since then, a SuperTarget has begun construction nearby, at the area where U.S. 41 forks with Dale Mabry Highway. Wal-Mart also has submitted site plans for a supercenter next to that SuperTarget store.

Those two retailers first proposed to set up in that location about the same time as Lowe's.

Because Lowe's hasn't closed on its purchase yet, Rich said she could not comment on that specific site.

"The real estate process can be long and complicated," she said.

The proposed Lowe's on SR 54, and its 547 parking spaces, occupy only about a third of the 52 acres under contract. The rest of the land is dominated by retention ponds, wetlands and part of Floyd Lake.

Lowe's has two stores in Pasco: It opened one in Zephyrhills in 2005 and another in New Port Richey in 1999, Rich said.

The chain has 96 stores in Florida, where the first opened in 1981.

Chuin-Wei Yap can be reached at 813 909-4613 or cyap@sptimes.com.

[Last modified July 12, 2007, 23:00:32]