By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – The Walmart corporation is planning to construct a new Neighborhood Market grocery store and gas station on Alabama 119 near its intersection with Fulton Springs Road.

The company has filed plans on the LDI-Line website calling for a 41,920-square-foot grocery store across from the current Publix shopping center on Alabama 119. LDI-Line hosts and sells documents and prints related to several construction projects in multiple states.

The Anniston-based McWhorter and Company, Inc. is listed as the contractor for the project.

Plans for the project call for the store to be on the western side of Alabama 119, and call for a large parking lot fronting the road. The 41,920-square-foot grocery store will be west of the parking lot, and a gas station will be in the northern end of the parking lot.

The store’s primary access point will be at the intersection of Alabama 119 and Fulton Springs Road, and plans also call for a new right-hand turn lane off Alabama 119 south leading to the gas station parking lot.

Alabaster City Manager George Henry said the city has received the company’s plans, and said the city’s Planning and Zoning Board are planning to consider subdividing the lot to allow the project to move forward. The city’s Zoning Board of Adjustments has already approved a variance for the project, Henry said.

Once constructed, the Neighborhood Market will be the third in Shelby County. Walmart previously opened Neighborhood Market stores off Shelby County 17 in Helena and on Valleydale Road in North Shelby in former Winn Dixie supermarket locations.

Walmart Neighborhood Markets are smaller than the company’s Superstores, and primarily focus on grocery offerings, along with a limited selection of non-grocery items.