County helping Costco land deal for new store as Walmart expands existing Dallas location
County officials say they are doing all they can to help national retailer Costco complete a deal to bring its new store and possibly hundreds of jobs to Paulding.
And another national retailer, Walmart, is investing almost $3 million for renovations to its Dallas store which operates on the same road.
The Paulding County government is working with the two parties to complete the deal for Costco’s planned site on Charles Hardy Parkway in Dallas months after it submitted plans for the store, County Chairman Dave Carmichael said.
Carmichael said he believed “all parties are committed to positive results” and a new store in Dallas “will be a great success story for all of us.”
Costco representatives submitted plans in 2018 which featured a 152,000-square-foot building and 765 parking spaces on a 25-acre site at 1577 Charles Hardy Parkway near Old Griffin Road.
The Paulding County Commission on March 8 voted to rezone the store site and 41 adjacent acres for commercial uses to help the deal come to fruition.
Carmichael said the county government has offered help with everything from infrastructure work to hosting meetings between the company and landowner.
“With a project like this, there’re always a lot of moving parts,” Carmichael said.
He said the county government has coordinated “several meetings to bring the parties together.”
“Our staff’s been available day to day, even hour to hour, to answer any questions,” he said.
He said the county has made its staff available for questions and help with coordinating with Georgia DOT officials.
GDOT must approve any traffic control devices or entrances to the site off Hardy Parkway, which is Ga. Hwy. 120 and a heavily-traveled route between Cobb and Paulding counties.
Costco officials said the company does not comment publicly on future locations or store plans.
The Washington-based company operates 762 membership warehouse club stores nationwide, including 10 in Metro Atlanta.
Costco’s employment reportedly varies based on sales but averages about 200 per store, according to the website quora.com.
The job recruitment company ZipRecruiter said on its website the average Costco worker makes about $25,000 annually.
However, Costco executives recently announced the company was increasing its minimum wage to $15 an hour after it reported higher than anticipated earnings this year, U.S. News and World Report reported.
Meanwhile, Walmart is doing a $1 million remodel and a $1.8 million expansion of its store at 3615 Charles Hardy Parkway in Dallas, according to building permits filed with the county government.
A company spokesman said Walmart “expects to spend an estimated $104 million this year in Georgia through the remodeling of 18 stores, as well as the launch and continued expansion of several customer-focused innovations.”
The Dallas store is among 18 it is now remodeling out of the 216 stores it operates in Georgia.
It did not say specifically what services or systems it was adding to the Dallas store.
However, it said in a news release that additions to its Georgia locations this year include adding space and equipment for Grocery Pickup service to 52 additional stores; Grocery Delivery service to 36 stores; and Walmart Pickup Towers for retrieval of online orders at 37 stores.
It also will add autonomous shelf scanners for inventory control to four stores; FAST Unloader systems which require less time unloading trucks at an additional 62 stores; and Autonomous Floor Scrubbers using a technology-based system “to perform the task of cleaning and scrubbing the concrete floors” at 68 additional stores, the news release stated.