                                ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, January 17, 1996            TAG: 9601170029
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B-8  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: S.D. HARRINGTON AND MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITERS

SALEM WAL-MART GROWS MOVE WILL GIVE ROANOKE AREA TWO GIANT DISCOUNT HOUSES

Just a week before opening a Supercenter at Valley View Mall in Roanoke, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has announced plans to build a second giant store in the Roanoke Valley, this one in Salem.

The 175,000-square-foot Supercenter will open this fall, said Keith Morris, a Wal-Mart corporate spokesman based at the company's headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. The Salem location will join the Supercenter that will open in Roanoke next Wednesday and those scheduled to open in Rocky Mount, Christiansburg and Martinsville this year.

Late in 1995, Wal-Mart purchased two lots adjacent to the existing Salem discount store on West Main Street. The retailer will expand its existing store west to Libby Hill restaurant and east to Turner Road.

The company will hire 250 employees to supplement its current Salem staff of 150, Morris said.

Salem officials have agreed to add a traffic light at West Main Street and Turner Road.

City Planning Director Joe Yates said Wal-Mart wanted the traffic light there when it built the first store, but the city didn't think one was necessary. But with a combination of Wal-Mart's expansion, residential development and a 90-unit apartment complex planned off Turner Road, the traffic light now is necessary, Yates said.

``It's not an incentive that we dangled out there and said, `If you expand, we'll put it in,''' Yates said. ``There's plenty of users for Turner Road.''

Depending on what work has to be done to the streets, Yates said, the traffic light could cost the city $150,000 to $250,000.

The city plans to begin work on the traffic light and intersection as soon as possible.

Supercenters are open 24 hours a day and combine Wal-Mart's discount store inventory with grocery and other specialty departments, including vision centers, automotive centers, fast-food restaurants and beauty salons.

Wal-Mart opened about 70 Supercenters in 1995 and plans to build another 100 this year.

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ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC:  Map by staff. color.

by CNB