Governor Jim Justice paid a visit to the 1,000-plus acre WestRidge development on Wednesday as it was announced that a 173,000 square-foot Menards will anchor WestRidge Commons — the retail portion of the business and retail park.
The announcement was made at the 30,000 square-foot future home of information technology, engineering and science firm Leidos, which is currently under construction.
Menards is a chain of home improvement stores that carry everything from lumber to groceries across the mid-western U.S.
This will be the chain’s first store in West Virginia and will join more than 300 locations across 15 states.
Holly Childs, director of business development and external relations for WestRidge, said Menards is the first of many announcements to come for the retail park — which will feature an additional 160,000 square feet of national soft-goods retailers and 60,000 square feet of smaller local and boutique shops — located across Exit 153 from the University Town Centre.
“It’s taken a while to get here, but I assure you, within the next two years you’re going to see those stores open and this whole landscape change,” she said.
Menards will sit on about 15 acres. Childs said construction is slated to begin next spring. The store is planned to open in the spring of 2021.
Justice said that as the state’s economic numbers continue to improve, space in developments like WestRidge will get harder to come by.
“West Virginia, in general, is now becoming the diamond in the rough that people missed. It’s becoming the opportunity place,” he said, later adding “We just keep pumping out more and more positive numbers … All the sudden people want to come. You’re going to have a hard time beating them away. Not only do you have the compounding of everything here that’s good, but now you have a state that’s really on the move, too.”
Childs also shared news about future tenants of the WestRidge Corporate Park, noting law firm Steptoe & Johnson has secured 40,000 square feet of space in the Class A office development located across from the Gateway. MVB Bank has also secured 11,000 square feet for its operational headquarters in one of two buildings currently under construction.
She said progress and announcements surrounding WestRidge can be tracked at westridgewv.com, which is slated to go live today.
The Leidos development is located in a portion of the park called the WestRidge Commerce Center, which already features a 100,000 square-foot Fed Ex distribution center.
