New tenant for old Kmart
SPRING HILL –
The long-deserted Kmart building in Spring Hill is about to get a new tenant.
Illinois-based Rural King bought the property for $1.6 million, has closed on the property and is in the process of opening their first farm and home store in Florida.
Realtor Buddy Selph with Tommie Dawson Realty, which brokered the deal, said he expects the new store will challenge nearby Home Depot and Lowe’s.
Family-owned and operated Rural King has 60 stores in seven states, mostly in the Midwest. A typical store employs 50-80 people.
It sells everything from clothes and pet food to car tires, hardware supplies and home furnishings.
“It’s like a Tractor Supply on steroids,” Selph joked.
And, given that county commissioners recently approved the raising of fowl in Spring Hill, this will be the ideal place to get chicken feed, he said.
Rural King will take over the entire 91,500 square feet of store space. The building, vacant for about 10 years and located at 2450 U.S. 19., also will need renovating inside and out.
Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2002 and closed many of its stores — including one in Spring Hill and Brooksville — a year later.
The Hernando County Property Appraiser’s site shows the land was valued at $1.5 million and the building valued at $725,000.
No date has been set for opening and attempts to reach a chain representative were unsuccessful.
To learn more about Rural King, visit its website at www.ruralking.com
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In other business news:
Springfield, Mo.-based O’Reilly is making inroads into central and South Florida and will tackle head-on such stores as Discount Auto Parts, Advance Auto Parts and Auto Zone.
The chain is building a distribution center in Lakeland to handle the new Florida stores.
Mark Merz, director of external reporting and investor relations for O’Reilly Auto Parts, said Brooksville was subject to the same site selection criteria as other stores. The chain looks at easy truck access to the store, demographics, economic climate and the number of competitors in the area.
The typical store is 7,100 square feet and employs 8-10 people, said Merz, who expects to open late this year.
Merz said the chain recently opened its 4,000th store in Tampa this January.
Learn more about O’Reilly Auto Parts at www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/home.oap
