Preliminary work begins on Wal-Mart site in Mount Olive
By Turner Walston
Published in News on June 30, 2006 1:51 PM
MOUNT OLIVE -- Work is under way at a proposed Wal-Mart site on N.C. 55, northwest of downtown Mount Olive.
Wal-Mart officials have not said officially that they are planning to build a store on the site, but they have been talking with town officials for months and work at the location has already started.
"They're doing some silt fencing and getting ready to grade the site, I presume for Wal-Mart, but we don't have the official word," Town Manager Charles Brown said this week.
A Wal-Mart spokesman confirmed that the company is at work.
"We are beginning construction on that site," Tara Stewart of Wal-Mart public affairs said in an e-mail to the News-Argus. She said there is no confirmed timeline at this point. "We're just in the beginning stages of construction. It usually takes anywhere from 10-12 months to construct a new supercenter," she said.
Meanwhile, earth is being moved and the groundwork for a building and parking lot is under way.
"We've assigned them an address," Brown said. The town has also granted water and sewer permits for the site, and a gravel road has been laid for a construction trailer.
The silt fencing will assure that mud from construction will not run off the site, Brown said.
Brown said he anticipates the store being open in the spring.
"Everything that I've seen points to May of '07," he said.
According to Brown, Allen & Company of Goldsboro is performing the grading of the property for general contractor Helms Builders.