ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 12, 1996 TAG: 9603120058
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: ELISSA MILENKY STAFF WRITER
The shelves are up, the cash registers have been installed and nearly 200 new employees have been hired.
The new Harris Teeter supermarket in Blacksburg, which already has given the Gables Shopping Center a facelift, tentatively is set to open on April 10. The 51,700-square-foot store, which is the company's first flagship store in Virginia, will offer a number of upscale amenities, including two full-time chefs, a wine consultant, a juice and melon bar and a walk-in beer cooler.
The Charlotte, N.C.-based company, which has 143 stores in Virginia, Georgia and North and South Carolina, plans to open more flagship stores throughout the state, including one scheduled to open soon in Virginia Beach.
"The thing we try to accomplish here is make it an exciting place to shop and make it fun," said Tim Wilson, Harris Teeter's new manager, who added that the company has been conducting focus groups to determine what products and services customers want.
The new Harris Teeter store, which is made up of three and a half store spaces, has been under construction for a year and is the crowning jewel of the shopping center's renewal. Before Bob Pack's development company took over Gables in 1994, the shopping center was only half full and in a state of disrepair.
Now there are only 10,000-square-feet of vacant space left, including the Bonanza building, most recently the home of Humane Society's Second Time Around store. (That store has moved to Hethwood Square.) Pack said he may rebuild the structure before finding another tenant.
In the last two years, stores such as Advance Auto, America's Carpet Gallery, Coal Bank Hollow and the Benjamin Moore Paint Store have moved into Gables. A new convenience store to go along with a revamped Texaco gas station us under construction and should be ready for business soon. The YMCA also moved in within the last year, Pack said.
New landscaping, sidewalks, traffic islands and signs also have lifted the look of Gables Shopping Center.
"Within the next month or six weeks, we ought to be pretty well finished," Pack said.
LENGTH: Short : 46 linesby CNB