Longtime employees of the Martinez Wal-Mart cheered Wednesday morning as they cut the ribbon to one of the largest stores in the Southeast.
"It is a great day," said Jason DiLorenzo, manager of the more than 5.2-acre store on Bobby Jones Expressway. "It has been a long way getting here."
The store has undergone renovations for more than a year after receiving approval 18 months ago to turn the 149,000-square-foot Wal-Mart store into a 227,000-square-foot Supercenter.
The new Supercenter includes a full service grocery department, including fresh meat and produce, a frozen food section and deli. The story also includes a drive-through garden center, a tire and lube center, an expanded electronics department, a McDonald's, a portrait studio and a hair salon.
"It was something I was ready to go through," said DiLorenzo, who has overseen store expansions in his 13 years with Wal-Mart. "The associates have been wanting it for a while. But most of it is our customers have been needing it for a while."
DiLorenzo said he's proud his store can offer so many services as a "one-stop shop" during tough economic times and high gas prices.
But the process of expanding the store into several neighboring stores, including the former Bi-Lo location, was not an easy one. Customers and employees endured about a year of construction.
"A four-wall expansion is probably the toughest thing we do as a company," said Gerald Gantt, market manager over a 13-store district. "It is kind of like changing your oil while going down the road doing 60 mph."
The store, Columbia County's first Wal-Mart, opened in 1988 under the management of John Veal. He saw the store expand from 81,000 to 149,000 square feet before he left in 2000 to manage the Deans Bridge Road store.
Veal said the Martinez store has always been a landmark as it was one of largest at the time it opened and was expanded, when no Supercenters existed. It also was one of the highest volume and profit stores, one of the first stores operated 24 hours a day and one of the first to eliminate price tags in favor of scanning merchandise.
"It was a relief not to tag merchandise anymore," Veal said.
But staying ahead of the curve is the company's goal, DiLorenzo said.
"We've come a long way in 20 years, haven't we?" he said. "That is the great thing about this company. The only constant in this company is change. We have to keep ahead of the pace and ahead of the times."
The store's 20-year associates arrived in a limousine and led a large crowd in cutting the ribbon Tuesday, marking the end of construction and the official grand opening of the newly renovated store.
Columbia County Commission Chairman Ron Cross said it is a testament to the store and its employees that they are one of only a few businesses still prospering in the current economic crunch.
"I think that is a tribute to you and what you do for your customer base," he said, "that through good times or bad ... they come back to get the services that you offer."
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