Hollister
– Lowe’s has agreed to purchase a 12-acre parcel on Hillcrest
Road where the company is expected to open a home improvement
center next year.
Hollister – Lowe’s has agreed to purchase a 12-acre parcel on Hillcrest Road where the company is expected to open a home improvement center next year.
Al Guerra, whose family owns the property, said the Guerra family has reached an agreement with Lowe’s, which he hopes will serve as the anchor for a commercial complex the family plans to build on adjacent land along the route of the planned Highway 25 bypass. The Lowe’s store would be the first big-box home improvement center in Hollister.
“It’s as sure a thing as you can get … until they get their tractors started,” Guerra said.
Site plans for the project – which call for a 150,000-square-foot home improvement center and a 31,500-square-foot garden center – are likely to go before the county planning commission in March, Guerra said. County supervisors expressed support for the project in December, when they approved a zoning change on the Guerra property.
“I believe it’s a good project for the community,” Supervisor Don Marcus said Monday. “It adds to the employment base and job opportunities. I believe the (Highway 25) bypass will encourage further economic development … particularly for the city of Hollister.”
Lowe’s spokeswoman Maureen Rich said Monday that the company has not yet closed on the purchase of land in Hollister. Rich told the Free Lance that the home improvement company does not comment on potential locations until such deals have closed.
Lowe’s stores typically bring up to 175 new jobs to a community, 75 percent of them full-time, Rich said.
The purchase agreement would allow Lowe’s to back out of the deal if major problems arise, Guerra said.
The biggest remaining hurdle that might prevent the project from moving forward, Guerra said, is the status of the Highway 25 bypass. The bypass would route Highway 25 traffic off San Benito Street through downtown Hollister and onto a new road east of downtown near McCray Street.
County officials have said they plan to break ground on the project in May, but Guerra noted that construction has been repeatedly delayed.
“If something happens to the bypass, then we don’t really have an agreement,” Guerra said.
He said plans call for the home improvement center to open at the same time as the bypass, which is slated for completion by the end of 2008.
The plans also call for a separate septic system, because the property remains on county land.
However, Guerra hopes that once Hollister’s new sewage treatment plant is on-line, the development should be annexed into the city and hook into the city’s sewer system.
Guerra and others have said that the Lowe’s project could be an economic boon, bringing jobs and tax revenue to Hollister, as well as giving more options to local shoppers.
However, some local business owners have previously said they’re worried that big-box stores such as a Lowe’s could take customers away from existing Hollister businesses.
San Benito Chamber of Commerce President Mark Vivian said he doesn’t yet know enough about the proposal or its status to comment specifically on the Lowe’s store.
“But generally speaking, any new business is welcome,” Vivian said.
Anthony Ha covers local government for the Free Lance. Reach him at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or
ah*@fr***********.com
.
