New grocery store and shopping center could be coming to west Bibb
The first new shopping center to be built in west Bibb County in several years may be on the way.
A proposed shopping center with a 48,387-square-foot grocery store on Thomaston Road at its intersection with Tucker Road is on the agenda for the Macon-Bibb Planning & Zoning Commission meeting later this month. The site is about one-half mile from Interstate 475.
The shopping center site plan shows the grocery store would have a drive-thru pharmacy, delicatessen and “various soft goods,” which generally means clothing or bedding, according to a statement from the applicant, JWA Ventures LLC. The site plans also shows two adjacent buildings with 9,000-10,000 square feet each for smaller tenants and two outparcels of about 1 acre each, typically for fast-food or casual restaurants.
The applicant is a division of Jim Wilson & Associates based on Montgomery, Alabama, which developed The Shoppes at River Crossing off Riverside Drive in north Bibb County.
Attempts Friday to reach the applicant were unsuccessful.
Apparently, five structures and other out buildings currently on the site would be torn down or moved.
The 14-acre site is composed of nine contiguous parcels on Thomaston and Tucker roads and includes 5591, 5581, 5571 and 5561 Thomaston Road. A conditional-use permit is sought for eight of the parcels that are already zoned for commercial use. A rezoning application has been filed for one parcel, at 2154 Tucker Road, to change the zoning from a single-family residential district to a commercial district. This parcel would contain a stormwater management pond, according to the site plan.
Plans for the shopping center show one entrance/exit on Thomaston Road and two on Tucker Road..
Across Thomaston Road, a Shoppers Value Foods grocery store anchors the Northwest Commons shopping center with a VA Outpatient Clinic and other tenants, as well as an O’Reilly’s Auto Parts store in an outparcel near the road. The Food Lion in that shopping center, where Shoppers Value Foods is now located, closed in 2012, according to Telegraph archives.
The new project already is listed in marketing materials on Jim Wilson & Associates’ website, and it shows a projected opening date of “Spring 2020.”
The applications are listed on the agenda for the Aug. 13 zoning meeting.
This story was originally published August 3, 2018 at 4:39 PM.