Target to Build Store in Brandon, Fla.

Feb. 27, 2007
Location near Tampa finally gets going; 150,000-s.f. store in works

BRANDON - It has taken three tries, but Target is finally building a store off Bloomingdale Avenue.

The 150,000-square-foot store will employ about 400 people and is under construction on the northwest corner of Bloomingdale Avenue and Gornto Lake Road, across from a Home Depot.

Two attempts to get approval to build a store near Bloomingdale High School and the Bloomingdale Regional Public Library failed.

Roman Garza, a manager at the Target store off State Road 60 near the Westfield Brandon mall, said the new store will be a SuperTarget and is scheduled to open in October.

It will be one of the first two SuperTargets in Hillsborough County; another is expected to open at about the same time in the North Dale Mabry area of Tampa. The area's only other SuperTarget is just north of the Hillsborough County line in Wesley Chapel.

In 1999, a developer gave up plans for a Target store near the high school after residents and members of the Planning Commission raised concerns about too much traffic and commercial development in a residential area.

A second attempt to build a Target at the same site in 2002 also failed.

Garza said the existing Brandon store will remain open. The SuperTarget will carry the chain's regular line of department store items plus groceries and household supplies.

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