The Weigel’s on South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge is now open.
A Weigel’s gas station and store is now open on South Illinois Avenue, and a nearby Aldi grocery has a grand opening celebration on Thursday.
The Weigel’s is on 1.5 acres south of TNBank, and the 4,000-square-foot store includes 16 gas pumps.
Construction started this spring. It’s now the second Weigel’s store in Oak Ridge and the only gas station on South Illinois Avenue between Tulsa Road in central Oak Ridge and Solway in Knox County.
Weigel’s Farm Stores Inc. is a chain headquartered in Powell that operates 57 local dairy and convenience stores.
The Aldi on South Illinois Avenue in Oak Ridge has a grand opening celebration on Thursday.
Construction on the Aldi store started this summer. The 1.4-acre site is near the relocated, expanded Panera Bread and new Aubrey’s restaurant, on the other side of a new roadway called Woodland Terrace East.
Plans to build the 16,000-square-foot store at the Woodland Town Center, where Aubrey’s and Panera opened in October 2012, was announced in January.
The Aldi store will be open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday.
Construction on Woodland Town Center started more than a year ago. The shopping center is across from the former Dean Stallings Ford.
The new road through the small shopping center and a stoplight in front of it, as well as improvements to the public storm water system, are being paid for with help from a $625,000 tax increment financing agreement approved by city and county officials. That agreement, which could last up to 20 years, allows tax revenues generated at the site to be used for the improvements.
Aldi is an international discount grocery store chain that has more than 1,000 stores in 31 states in the United States. The stores carry items from fresh produce and meat to bread and peanut butter.
To cut costs and keep prices low, the company does things like use a shopping cart deposit system that requires shoppers to deposit a quarter to use a cart. The quarter is refunded when the shopper returns the cart. Aldi uses this system to cut down on the costs of collecting carts left in parking lots and reduce damage to cars.
Aldi opened its first Knoxville store in 2009, and there are now three stores in the city, including one on Schaad Road, and a fourth in Alcoa.
About six years ago, Aldi proposed building a store in Oak Ridge at the corner of Florida Avenue and Oak Ridge Turnpike, where the Dollar General store is now.
The new Weigel’s is at 417 S. Illinois Ave., and Aldi is at 111 Woodland Terrace East.
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