PORT ANGELES — It’s official: Wal-Mart will build a Supercenter on the site of the old Kmart store east of town.
Months of speculation about the site ended Thursday when Eric Berger, the firm’s Seattle-based spokesman, confirmed that the giant retailer will build a 195,293-square-foot store on the north side of U.S. Highway 101 between Kolonels Way and North Masters Road.
“We have decided to move forward with a Supercenter at that location,” Berger said.
“This is very early in the process but it’s one of the first steps, and we look forward to working with Clallam County.”
The store will be 82,000 square feet larger than the Wal-Mart that opened in Sequim a year ago and more than 66,000 square feet larger than its current Port Angeles store across the highway from the Kmart site.
Berger said the company has no specific plans for the existing, 9-year-old Wal-Mart at 3500 Highway 101 East, Port Angeles.
“But we have a team of real estate professionals who work to market and advertise our old stores or our empty stores to other tenants,” he said.
Berger also said he could not reveal what the new store will cost to build, when demolition of the old Kmart building will begin or when construction of the new Supercenter — essentially a Wal-Mart department store plus a supermarket — will start.
In August, he said a Supercenter takes about 10 months to build after all permits are approved.
With demolition of the old Kmart and Fashion Bug buildings yet to begin and with construction permits still to be approved, an opening isn’t expected until early 2007.
The Port Angeles Supercenter will be one of 10 such stores the company plans to construct nationwide in 2006, bringing the total from 270 to 280, according to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Preliminary site plans show a “potential future auto service center” on the east side of the building. It would increase the Supercenter’s size to 203,091 square feet, although Berger said it wasn’t part of the current application.
Even without the auto center, the store will be about 2½ times the size of the old Kmart store.