Menards Inc. has scooped up 34 acres of land along Cooper Chapel Road and Preston Highway, where it plans to build its first Louisville store.
A Wisconsin-based hardware and home improvement store bought the properties from multiple landowners after receiving approval from Louisville Metro Government to rezone the land from residential to commercial use.
The purchase price was a little more than $8.6 million. Horizon Commercial Realty agent Suzanne Day Cheek represented Menards in the deal, which consisted of more than 13 lots.
The properties are located south of the Gene Snyder Freeway near the Quail Chase Golf Course in South Louisville. The primary project address is 4700 Cooper Chapel Road (see map below), but the zoning request also takes in several addresses in the 4900 and 5000 blocks of Cooper Chapel Road, 10211 Preston Highway and a half dozen addresses in the 4900-5100 blocks of Maple Springs Drive.
According to the site plan approved by the city, Menards intends to build a one-story, 203,000-square-foot store and a roughly 54,000-square-foot storage building adjacent to the store on about 20 acres. The store will have more than 400 parking spaces.
The remaining 14 acres have been divided into five residual tracts that could be sold to developers for other commercial uses.
Jeff Abbott, the spokesman and promotions manager for Menards, was out of the office Monday and could not be reached by phone or e-mail. Another Menards official declined to comment, directing me back to Abbott.
Bill Bardenwerper, a Louisville attorney representing Menards, said Monday that he did not have an updated construction start or completion date for the store. He previously told The Courier-Journal that Menards wants to start construction in early 2018 for a mid-2019 opening.
The Louisville store comes after Menards opened a Jeffersonville store at 4400 Town Center Blvd., off Veterans Parkway, in 2015.
In addition to tools and building materials, the Jeffersonville location has a full-service lumber yard with a covered warehouse, a garden center, a pet and wildlife department and an appliance section. It employs about 100 people.
The retail chain has more than 300 stores in 14 states across the Midwest, including a store in Owensboro.
According to a news release, Horizon Commercial Realty also represented Menards last summer in the purchase of 38.5 acres in Elizabethtown, where it plans another store.
Marty Finley covers economic development, commercial and residential real estate, government and sports business.
