The Middletown store will employ 12 to 17 full-time and part-time team members, Graham said. Applications are on the company’s Web site: www.tractorsupply.com. It will be the company’s 84th Ohio location.
District manager Jerry Moore said the company was attracted to Middletown because of the farmers and horse owners in the area.
TCS is the largest retail farm and ranch supply store chain in the U.S. and has been operating in Ohio since 1948, Moore said. The Middletown location will have 27,776 square feet.
The company has received unanimous support by the Middletown Planning Commission to permit conditional outdoor storage and displays, allowing it to continue plans to open.
Of Tuesday, workers were building a fenced-in area in the parking lot, and many of the shelves and displays were up in the store.
The space has been vacant since Kmart closed in November 2009, and having another tenant, at least in part of the Kmart space, will be “a real advantage to get something going at that end of the shopping center.”
Robert Lang, of Kamin Realty Co., the Pittsburgh-based company that owns Eastgate Shopping Center, said there has been some difficulty in getting the space leased.
“Since Kmart left several years ago, our big challenge is in trying to market this to another big-box tenant,” Lang said. “Tractor Supply was the first that came around to consider moving a little bit closer into the city and away from the expressway area. And looking at the whole picture of the general market, they feel they can do well here.”
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