By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER –

A high-end beauty supply store is shooting to open in Alabaster’s South Promenade shopping center by the end of October, city leaders announced during a Jan. 22 work session.

Ulta Beauty, which currently has stores in Hoover’s Patton Creek shopping center, off U.S. 280 in Brook Highland and in Tuscaloosa, is preparing to open a location in the former maurices location between Dicks Sporting Goods and Best Buy.

“This is one of those destination shops that people come to a shopping center for,” Alabaster City Manager George Henry said during the work session. “It increases your trade area. People will come here who otherwise wouldn’t come here.”

The Highway 31/11 LLC development company, which owns the Dicks Sporting Goods property, also owns the former maurices property. The developer is preparing to expand the existing building on the property “by about two-and-a-half times,” making it a 70-foot-wide by 145-foot-deep building, Henry said.

Ulta is an Illinois-based beauty supply retailer offering a wide range of cosmetics, fragrance, bath and body products, hair care, skin care and salon styling tools. Ulta also offers full-service salons in all of its stores.

“It’s a great, high-end store. The store closest to us in Patton Creek in Hoover does a great deal of revenue,” said state Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, who also is the executive director of the Alabaster Industrial Development Board. “It’s very positive, and we think it will do a lot of good for our community and our shopping center.”

The Alabaster City Council is considering an incentives package for the new store, and is preparing to have a public hearing on the matter in the next several weeks.

Through the incentives package, Highway 31/11 LLC will receive a rebate on a portion of the sales taxes Ulta generates over $15,000 per year for the first five years the store is open.

Based on average yearly sales tax submissions for similar stores in the area, and because the Ulta store will be considered a redevelopment, the developer will not receive any tax rebates on the first $15,000 in sales taxes Ulta generates each year.

After Alabaster receives $15,000 in sales taxes from the store each year, the developer will be rebated 90 percent of sales taxes the store generates in its first three years, 80 percent in the store’s fourth year and 75 percent in the store’s fifth year up to a total value of $516,000.

The Ulta store is predicted to generate about $120,000 in sales taxes per year.

If Ulta or a similar-sized business does not occupy the building for at least 10 years, Highway 31/11 LLC will be required to repay all sales tax rebates.