By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Crews have begun demolishing the former A-1 Sand and Brick building on Alabama 119 across from Zaxby’s to make way for a new Walmart Neighborhood Market building.

On the morning of Feb. 13, crews using excavators had begun tearing down the back walls of the large former A-1 building near the intersection of Alabama 119 and Fulton Springs Road.

For the past few years, the brick building housed the Seed Design company before a developer purchased the land to construct the Walmart Neighborhood Market.

The Walmart corporation is planning to construct the new Neighborhood Market grocery store and gas station on Alabama 119 across from the Zaxby’s restaurant.

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.

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.

Once constructed, the Neighborhood Market will be the third in Shelby County. Walmart previously opened a Neighborhood Market store 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.

In December 2014, the Alabaster City Council approved an agreement with the MAP Development company to install new traffic signals at the intersection of Alabama 119 and Fulton Springs Road to allow for the new store. MAP will cover the cost of installing the new signal and modifying the intersection.