Northpinellas: Work under way on Wal-Mart supercenter

OLDSMAR -- In about a year, the same folks who bake your bread and sell your milk could also fit your eyeglasses, change your car's oil and sell your favorite fishing lures.

Wal-Mart has begun work on its planned $8-million, 208,052-square-foot supercenter on Tampa Road. Company officials expect construction at the 28-acre site between Forest Lakes Boulevard and Pine Avenue N to get rolling by October and last 10 to 12 months.

Company spokeswoman Daphne Davis said the store's grand opening is scheduled for fall 2001. The store, which will employ about 500 people, will have a full grocery store, an optical center, a one-hour photo lab and an auto service shop. The store also will lease space typically used for salons, banks, video stores and portrait studios.

"It will be a huge convenience, especially for working families," Davis said. "The thinking is our customers will be able to take care of their general merchandise needs and also their groceries and other needs."

The store will be the first supercenter in North Pinellas, but it will not be the only one in the county. The retail giant also plans to begin construction almost simultaneously on a supercenter on U.S. 19 in Pinellas Park. It will be about a half-mile south of the existing Wal-Mart at 8900 U.S. 19 N. The 10-year-old store will be closed when the new store opens.

The Pinellas Park store, which will be slightly bigger at 223,876-square feet, will have the same one-stop-shopping features, Davis said. Construction is planned to begin in November and be completed at about the same time as the Oldsmar store.

The construction of the two supercenters in Pinellas County is part of the company's nationwide plan to build bigger stores instead of regular Wal-Marts.

Although most of its stores still are the smaller ones -- the company has 825 supercenters and 1,749 regular stores -- the majority of Wal-Mart's store openings are for supercenters. By January, Wal-Mart plans to open 200 new stores, and three-fourths of those stores will be supercenters, Davis said.

The company had planned to begin construction on the Oldsmar supercenter early this year, but decided to postpone the project to increase the chances of saving tall trees and shrubs on a 5-acre swamp in the middle of the property.

A consultant hired by the company recommended rescheduling the construction because fall is a much better time of year to replant trees. The company has to move 1,200 wetland trees and shrubs to other areas on the property. The plants to be moved range from relatively spindly shrubs to 100,000-pound, 70-foot tall trees.

Wal-Mart is required by the state to enhance and restore about 32 acres of wetlands and uplands on the project site and in nearby Brooker Creek Preserve to compensate for building over the 5-acre wetland.

When the store is finished, it will be a magnet for shoppers who want to take care of several things in one trip. "While you are getting your oil changed, we have quite possibly the largest waiting room for that service -- a 208,000-square-foot supercenter," Davis said. "The basic tenet is . . . being able to go to one location and take care of all these different needs that could send you running across town and take all day is really a time-saver."

- Staff writer Ed Quioco can be reached at (727) 445-4183 or at quioco@sptimes.com.

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