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Local shoppers will have another major grocery store as an option by late summer if the schedule detailed by the construction company proves to be accurate.
North Carolina-based WIMCO is building the new Publix, directly across Log Cabin Road from Kroger, and Bobby McCurtry is the Superintendent on-site.
”We started work July 10, and we are about 60-70 percent done now,” McMurtry said last week. “We didn’t do the site work. Publix was in charge of handling that.”
McMurtry said if all goes as planned, his company’s work should be done in about 4 ½ months.
“We should be turning it over to them around May 20,” he said.
McMurtry added that Publix will come in immediately and do the balance of the work preparing for the store’s opening. That usually takes 60 days, he said.
“Once we turn it over to them, they’re full bore, getting it stocked and ready to open. They don’t drag their feet about it by any means.”
Publix Media Relations Manager Nicole Krauss responded this past Wednesday morning to questions sent by email.
“We’re looking forward to opening our new Publix store in Milledgeville the third quarter of this year,” she wrote. “The store will hire about 150 new associates,” Krauss continued, “and we encourage interested applicants to check the Publix Jobs Facebook page and Publix.com/ jobs for updates.
In the meantime,” she added, “Interested applicants are welcome to apply at our store in nearby Lake Oconee Village."
McMurtry said the facility is 50,000 square feet in size, pretty standard, and Assistant Superintendent Josh Jernigan added that the majority of the company’s stores are very similar.
“Publix has all different types of prototypes,” he explained, “the biggest being 55,000 square feet. It also has 45,000 square feet. This is kind of middle of the line.
“Every 48,000 or 50,000 square feet store, the interior and the layout is going to be the same.”
McCrurtry said no problems have hindered work thus far.
“This job has gone stellar from beginning to now,” he said. “Absolutely no problems.”
The two said the inside should start looking more like a store in the next week to 10 days.
“As of next week we will be starting to put the finished floor on top of the concrete slab,” Jernigan stated.
“That’s a big milestone,” McMurtry added. “That’s when it starts turning into a store. Once a terrazzo floor gets put in, that’s when all the cases start coming in, and gondolas. The construction Is about 70 percent done at that stage.”
Also on the site is what is referred to as a strip mall, and WIMCO is doing that work as well.
“That is 12,000 square feet,” McMurtry said. “It has nine retail shops, but two are going to be combined, merged into one. So, there will be eight spaces leased out to other businesses. I don’t know if they have any tenants yet. But I wouldn’t be able to say if I did.”
The superintendent acknowledged there is a time factor.
“We are on schedule, actually a little ahead of schedule,” he said. “But, there is a deadline, always a deadline, and we will hit it.”