What's coming to the old Kmart shopping center?

Feb. 15—The lonely shopping center once anchored by Kmart on Russ Avenue in Waynesville is finally showing signs of life after sitting empty for three years since Kmart's closure.

Delivery trucks are bringing in building materials where a portion of the former sprawling Kmart building will become the new home of Harbor Freight, a national discount tool and equipment retailer.

Sitting in the passenger side of a pickup, Loretta Hart, who refers to herself as "the superintendent's wife" was the go-to person for the buzz of activity. With a cell phone in one hand and a friendly smile for others, she had the answers the barrage of delivery drivers, subcontractors and callers needed.

Hart and her husband, Wayne, work for Simmons Construction, a company out of New Tazewell, Tennessee, that got the bid to complete the Harbor Freight store. The task at hand is to carve out a portion of the former Kmart building and get 16,681-square-feet of it ready by April 3.

The Harts have a proven record of getting the job done on time. They are Missouri natives that travel across the nation handling quick-build type jobs for their employer. The time frame varies depending on the store, Loretta Hart explained.

For instance, a Big Lots store can take 12-13 weeks, while a job the size of the Harbor Freight contract is expected to wrap up in eight weeks. The couple works year-round on jobs like the Waynesville one, and generally is in three to four communities a year, she said.

Last Friday, the store footprint had been framed and some sheet rock had been placed — all since Jan. 30 when work began. Still, looking at the vast open space that will occupy about one-fourth of the former Kmart store could prompt the question, "can this get done on time?"

"We always make our deadline," said job superintendent Wayne Hart.

If things are looking dicey, he said he'd just bring in more help.

Loretta Hart explained that Simmons Construction has a standing list of contractors the company has worked with previously. Before the Harts ever arrive on the job, the sub contractors have bid the project and are ready to roll. Crews will work Monday through Saturday to get the space ready for shelf-stocking by the first week in April, she added.

Even last-minute changes — like when a new set of plans delivered via Fed Ex arrived Friday — were taken in stride.

The far end of the 50,000-square-foot Kmart building will house an auto parts store in the front section. The Harbor Freight space is L-shaped, with the back portion lapping around the back of the auto parts store, Loretta Hart explained. There will be space for two other stores, she said, for a total of four spaces in all.

Rumors of an ALDI

Loretta Hart said she'd been told one of the storefronts will be occupied by an ALDI grocery store.

That information, however, isn't found in official records to date.

"The building will be divided into four separate storefronts, but the only one that is confirmed Harbor Frieght," said Roy McDonald, Waynesville building inspector.

Of course, like everyone else, town building inspectors have heard an ALDI was being courted for one of the spaces, McDonald said.

"At this time, we only have a building permit for Harbor Freight," he said.

Early in the process, the town received a demolition permit for the interior of the building.

"The permit was originally to gut the Kmart building and get ready for it to be divided," McDonald said.

Additional building permits will be needed for each of the additional spaces once leases are signed and specs ironed out.

"They will pull the permit to remodel the next space once they determine what kind of business it is and what the needs are," McDonald said.

A slow resurgence

For years, Kmart anchored the 17-acre shopping center on Russ Avenue, occupying a 50,000-square-foot building that offered about any sort of consumer goods imaginable.

The retailer fell on hard times in 2002 in a market space sandwiched between the trendier Target on one side and Walmart's lower prices on the other.

Kmart struggled unsuccessfully to emerge with a profitable model after bankruptcy and restructuring. As of January 2023, Kmart had only 20 retail stores left in the nation. The Waynesville store closed in December 2019.

Since then, the building has been vacant and the once vibrant shopping center has had a fraction of its former traffic.

According to records on file at the Haywood County Register of Deeds office, Harbor Freight Tools USA leased 17,660 square feet of the building on Nov. 9, 2020, from PCF—Waynesville, LLC located in Newport Beach, California.

The lease was for a 10-year period with the option for two five-year renewals.

The terms in the agreement contained a laundry list of stipulations regarding the other potential tenants that may wish to lease space in the former Kmart building.

Harbor Freight has the exclusive right to sell tools and tool accessories, the lease states, and includes specific categories of other types of businesses that will be excluded from occupying space in the building. These exclusions include a full-service restaurant, a church, a car wash or gas station, an automobile repair shop, a gym or other health/fitness related business unless it is a single boutique "come and go" fitness facility, a movie theater or any entertainment, amusement or recreational facilities such as a bowling alley, skating rink, trampoline park or indoor playgrounds, to name a few.

One clause prohibits a grocery store or supermarket other than one grocery store that is 22,000 square feet or more in space and doesn't have an entrance or exit door within 100 feet of Harbor Freight's entrance.

The lease prohibitions address educational facilities, non-retail uses such as banking, tax preparation, real estate or brokerages, optical or dental offices, call centers, warehouses or manufacturing to name a few.