By Jay Ermis
The grand opening of Target’s new store in the Ravenwood Village Project on the west side of Interstate 45 is set for July 26.
Store team leader Tim Wolff said Thursday afternoon the 130,760 square-foot store will officially open with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 8 a.m. in 37 days.
With construction of the store completed by Sun Builders of Houston, Houston-based developer Property Commerce turned the store over to Target on Thursday morning.
Target is the anchor store in the Ravenwood project. Property Commerce purchased and developed 60 acres, receiving Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone assistance from the City of Huntsville.
Wolff said Target store employees began setting up display racks, shelves and fixtures at 8 a.m. Thursday and today they will start setting planograms.
“That way when we start unloading our trailers and trucks everything will be set according to where all of the product goes,” Wolff said. “We will get our first truck Wednesday.”
Wolff said the new Target is called a “prototype” fresh store.
“We will have perishable and non-perishable food products,” said Wendy Hulsey, executive of human resources. “This is the first kind of a brand new concept store that Target is putting in.
“It’s really the first one in this area. There is not another one within our district like this store. It’s kind of a split between a general merchandise store and a Super Target in that we will have a little bit of perishables.
“Some of your top 100 grocery items and lettuce, tomatoes, and general common need produce items. We will have a little bit of meat as well in addition to our normal size grocery department. We will also stock beer and wine.”
Hulsey said the store will carry clothing, electronics, office supplies and a small line of automobile supplies.
“We do want guests to know about the food items we will stock,” she said.
The store will have 14 checkout lanes at the front of the store, a Starbucks, Food Avenue with Pizza Hut, one-hour photo and a pharmacy.
Store hours will be 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday. The store will be open an extra hour from Thanksgiving through Christmas.
“This store is the newest of the new in everything,” Wolff said. “I think the local shopper here who drives down to the store in Conroe will be very surprised at the layout here. The biggest change is the perishables.
“We will have produce, meat, some bakery items and fruit. We will have things that people most commonly pick up when they go to the store to pick up a few things. We are starting to carry those now.”
Wolff said meat products include steak and pre-packaged sandwich meats, dairy and frozen items, fruits and vegetables.
“This is what is different from the other stores,” he said. “The meat, the produce, the fruit and the bakery items. Most general merchandise stores don’t have that. That is at a Super Target only.
“With the ‘P’ fresh, we are bringing in the perishable products, but it’s not a full-blown Super Target. We have other grocery products as well.”
Wolff said the Target store employs 153 people with 98 percent from the Huntsville area.
“We have more people that we are bringing in,” he said. “We had almost 2,000 people apply for jobs here for 185 jobs. We spent four weeks interviewing people. Most of them have no retail experience. For a lot of them, this is their first job.”
“I think people will love it,” Wolff said of people’s reaction to seeing the store. “Everybody we have interacted with in the Huntsville community has welcomed us with open arms and we appreciate that. We look forward to great partnerships.”
“We’re excited to be in the community,” Hulsey said. “We really look forward to working with the community in general.”
Wolff said his latest position with Target was at the Bryan store where he served as store team leader. Before then, he was at Cypress at Highway 290.
“I am familiar with back to college schools because I opened the Bryan store,” he said. “This is a back to college store with Sam Houston State and the different kind of products a store like this will carry to cater to the college student for dorms and that type of thing for back to college.”
