The sign outside still says renovations are coming, but the truth is the Noel Harps store is moving to the location of the former Walmart Express on South Cliffside Drive.
"It is a brand new facility," said Kim Eskew, president of Harps. "No matter what you do as far as a remodel, our facility is much older. We asked our employees what they thought, and the majority said moving is the best idea."
He said the location is slightly smaller, but the sales area is approximately the same with the back room being slightly smaller. Harps will add a meat prep area and will have a meat cutter on staff. The company will add some additional frozen food -- offering about twice as much as Walmart Express did, Eskew said. The new store will also have some additional refrigerated space, he said.
Eskew said he is not sure what will happen to the old building once it is vacated. He said Harps will have to lease it to somebody or make some other use of it. He was not aware of anyone who was interested in it.
"We were really all prepared to go ahead and remodel and at the last minute thought, 'Is that really what we should do?'"
He said that while the company had originally planned to remodel the store, when it came time to pull the trigger, they had already opened new stores in former Walmart Express locations in Seligman, Anderson and Cedarville (Ark.) and felt pretty good about those locations.
Eskew said the tentative opening date is Dec. 14.
Harps is 100 percent employee-owned. The company has more than 3,900 employees, making it the 30th largest employee-owned company in the nation. It will have 85 stores when the Noel store reopens in its new location.
Walmart closed all 102 Express locations in January. Harps bought several of the locations, including six in Arkansas.
General News on 11/24/2016