Two large competing discount stores are poised to open their doors in Utah Valley in the next several weeks, employing hundreds of people.
A third new competitor, which doesn't consider itself a discount center, will also provide jobs and begin vying for residents' dollars later this year.Wal-Mart will open store No. 2,511 at the end of January in the Utah Valley Business Park in American Fork. It will employ 260 people at its 122,600 square-foot store. All but 20 of the positions are filled, said manager Mark Weatherhogg.
SuperTarget is scheduled to start business in Orem on March 8. It needs at least 500 people to staff the 500,000 square-foot store. A "job fest" for potential employees will be held all day Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Orem also will be home to a new Fred Meyer store. Construction of the 158,000 square-foot "one-stop shopping" center should be finished in May, said Rob Boley, a company spokesman based in Portland, Ore. It will employ more than 250 people. With its jewelry counter, home-improvement department and other specialty sections, Fred Meyer believes it's a cut above discount stores.
"No other single store matches up with a full-size Fred Meyer," Boley said.
Nevertheless, all three new stores will be after many of the same customers, mostly middle-income families. The valley's growing population is one of the key reasons the nationwide chains decided to build new stores. They also considered transportation and distribution access, demographics, economic factors and the state of retailers in the area.
During the fourth quarter of 1995, the latest available data, retail trade accounted for 65 percent of Utah County's $751.3 million in taxable sales, a 12.5 percent increase over 1994 fourth-quarter sales. Food stores - SuperTarget and Fred Meyer will offer groceries - totaled $101.7 million in sales, while department stores followed with $95 million.
The three stores are among 64 retail outlets of various sizes to announce plans for projects in Utah County totaling more than $72.4 million, according to the Utah Valley Economic Development Association's 1996 midyear report.
"We definitely want key guests," said Lisa Woodward, spokeswoman for Minnesota-based Target Stores. The Target shopper's median age is 40 with a household income of $44,000 annually. Nearly 85 percent are women, and 60 percent have children at home, according to the company.
Fred Meyer, under construction adjacent to the University Mall, and SuperTarget, just off Orem's Center Street, will pull most of their patrons from the Provo-Orem area. Wal-Mart's location next to I-15 makes it accessible to north Utah County residents.
And even though the stores have yet to sell one item, they're already jockeying for position in the market. Wal-Mart, for instance, won't reveal the date it starts doing business.
"We certainly don't want any of our competitors to know the exact day we're opening," Weatherhogg said. The store fears stores like ShopKo or Kmart will run specials during its grand opening. Wal-Mart will simultaneously open 29 stores nationwide The American Fork store will relieve pressure from Wal-Mart's often crowded Orem location.
"It's one of the busiest in the whole region," he said.
Weatherhogg said it's a fallacy that large stores like Wal-Mart are looking to drive small, mom-and-pop stores out of business. Wal-Mart wants to enhance those businesses while taking on stores similar to itself such as Target, he said.
According to Target, its Orem store will contribute about $500,000 to the local economy through the purchase of services and supplies from area businesses. Target has 735 stores across the country and plans to open 18 new ones in March. Woodward said its Sandy super store is doing "very well."