Site preparation gets under way for AutoZone store in Springfield.

Byline: RETAIL NOTEBOOK By Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

Springfield is about to get in the zone.

AutoZone, the nation's largest auto parts retailer with more than 3,600 stores across the country, will open its second local outlet this fall at 2991 Main St., in Springfield. The company also has a store at 2395 W. 11th Ave., in Eugene.

The 5,400-square-foot Springfield store is being built on a former Weyerhaeuser Co. log staging area currently owned by George Wingard of Eugene.

Wingard, who also owns an adjacent lot that is home to a towing company, will build the $450,000 AutoZone store and lease it to the company.

"It's a national chain store, so it looks like all their other stores," says John Stapleton of Eugene's SS&W Inc., Engineers, which is representing Wingard on the project.

However, Stapleton says the auto parts store will include "a bunch of secondary protections" against groundwater contamination because the site is adjacent to a wellhead protection zone intended to guard the city's water wells against pollution.

Preventive measures that will be built into the store include a spillage containment system inside the building, a stormwater drainage system and a bioswale and detention pond for on-site treatment of stormwater.

"It's coming along," Stapleton says.

Site work is under way, and a concrete slab for the store's floor is scheduled to be poured next week.

AutoZone could not be reached for comment on the new store.

The Arkansas-based based retailer - founded as Auto Shack in 1979 - posted total revenue of $5.6 billion in 2004.

Car wash owner soaps up for another site

Another automobile-related business - Elite Car Bath - may be headed to a site in west Eugene.

Elite, owned by Frank Palmer of Eugene, currently has an outlet at 192 Q St., in Springfield. And Palmer owned the Elite Express Wash at 29th Avenue and Willamette Street in Eugene, which was demolished to make way for the ongoing renovation of the Woodfield Station shopping center.

"We're in the final phases of securing the funding," Palmer says of his efforts to build a new car wash at 1713 W. 8th Ave., in Eugene. "But even once we're finished with the financing, we're probably three months or four months out on getting it built."

The project is complicated somewhat by the fact that the property is owned by Raymond Rexius of Eugene, but Palmer is seeking a bank loan on his own to pay for the $600,000 car wash facility.

"We're going as hard as we can, but just the moving of the paperwork gets a little slower sometimes than we wish," Palmer says.

The property is largely vacant, and was formerly used as a you-haul yard for Rexius Forest Byproducts.

Big Lots adds finished

furniture to sales floor

Eugene's Big Lots Inc. store, which opened early this year in a former supermarket building at Barger Drive and Echo Hollow Road, now carries finished furniture.

The 28,500-square-foot store is one of 145 Big Lots stores around the country to expand their offerings this month with full furniture departments, according to the Columbus, Ohio-based chain of closeout retail outlets.

The stores previously carried only ready-to-assemble furniture.

Big Lots carries an inventory of everything from clothing to groceries to furniture, bought from manufacturers as excess merchandise.

The chain operates more than 1,500 stores in 46 states, including a dozen in Oregon. The company's annual revenues top $4 billion.

Retail Notebook runs on Thursdays. Joe Mosley can be reached at 338-2384 or [e-mail].