Walmart Stores Inc. has purchased 5 acres on South Glenstone Avenue with the intention of building the city’s first Neighborhood Market, according to Hannah Textor, who represented the seller in a May 20 transaction.
Textor, owner and operator of Hannah Textor Brokerage LC, said based on her conversations with the company, she believed it would be starting construction sometime this fall. Textor said she had not seen any design plans.
She said Walmart first expressed its interest in the property around the northeast corner of Glenstone Avenue and Bennett Street last summer and it signed an intent to purchase through an assigned buyer Aug. 24. The land had been home to the former L-shaped Glenstone Gardens strip center among other businesses. The property was on the market for more than three years by owner Kenneth Barth, president of Branson-based Industrial Park Plaza Inc. The acreage covers six addresses and eight parcels that appraised for more than $2.1 million in 2010, according to Greene County Assessor records.
“It’s been a long and tedious contract as it is with any big deal. I’m just happy I was able to find a qualified buyer for my client,” Textor said.
In March, Springfield Business Journal reported that a big-box retailer was purchasing the land based on talks with the seller. Neither Barth nor Textor would divulge the name saying they were under contract to not reveal the identity of the buyer.
Textor said many associates and friends had inquired about the identity of the buyer prior to the close of the property, but she never told them.
A call to Walmart Stores media relations was not returned by deadline.
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