Walmart Inc. is launching a full-store renovation of one of its first area Neighborhood Markets, which opened in 2013 in Arlington.
FMGI Inc. of Woodstock, Georgia, is the contractor for the $1.66 million project to remodel the 38,830-square-foot store at 8011 Merrill Road, Unit 9, in the Merrill Station shopping center.
Cuhaci & Peterson of Orlando is the architect.
Plans also indicate new signage that includes “Pickup” on the front.
The store is at northwest Merrill and Hartsfield roads, east of Interstate 295.
The first four area Walmart Neighborhood Markets opened in 2013 in Arlington, Mandarin and St. Johns and Clay counties.
There now are seven markets that include those in Baymeadows, at San Pablo and Atlantic Boulevard, and in West Jacksonville at Wilson Boulevard west of I-295.
Neighborhood Markets are Walmart grocery stores. About 38,000 square feet in size, they offer groceries, pharmacy services and household goods, but are a fifth of the size of the average 182,000-square-foot Walmart Supercenters.
Supercenters employ about 300 people each and Neighb
orhood Markets employ up to 95 people, according to corporate.walmart.com.
Walmart Neighborhood Markets carry produce, meat and dairy products, bakery and deli items, household supplies, health and beauty aids and a pharmacy.
Sam Walton opened his first discount store in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962.
Walmart began building Supercenters in 1988 and designed Neighborhood Markets in 1998 as a smaller-footprint option with a pharmacy, groceries and merchandise.
In December 2012, the city issued a permit for the Merrill Station Neighborhood Market as one of the first in Duval County. It replaced a former Food Lion supermarket. It was a $1.59 million project.
