ATLANTA -- The Home Depot opened its first Home Depot Fuel store in Georgia yesterday as the Atlanta-based company continues to increase service offerings to professional and do-it-yourself customers.
The new Fuel location is situated in front of a Home Depot retail store in Acworth, Ga., and comprises a 2,700-square-foot convenience store, a filling station and a car wash. The Home Depot has designed its Fuel stores with an eye on attracting business from contractors in addition to do-it-yourselfers and commuters, according to the company.
Based on feedback from contractor focus groups, a separate diesel island was built at the Acworth Fuel location to allow professionals to fill up large vehicles with high-speed dispensers and pay with fleet cards. The car wash was built to handle large pickup trucks and vans, and the store offers giant containers for coffee and larger sizes of snacks for contractors to take to their job sites.
The Home Depot Fuel strategy complements our recently announced plans to reinvest $350 million in our retail stores in the second half of 2006," said Jim Stoddart, senior vice president of growth initiatives at The Home Depot. "It's another way for us to continue to grow store revenue by delivering innovation, great value and one-stop-shop convenience to our customers. Plus it's no secret that the same contractors who spend a lot of time in our stores are also heavy customers of convenience stores."
Home Depot Fuel is a new concept being tested by the company. As Home Depot evaluates the success of the Acworth location and others, it will decide whether to expand the concept to new markets. The Home Depot opened its first fuel locations in Brentwood, Tenn., and Hermitage, Tenn., earlier this year. The Home Depot projects that each fuel location, including the new Acworth store, will have revenue of $5 million to $7 million per year.
The Home Depot selected Acworth as the site of the first Home Depot Fuel in Georgia because of its location along a major corridor and the success of the existing Home Depot store.
Home Depot Fuel has hired convenience store veteran Michael J. Kelley as manager of the Acworth Fuel location. The store will be open from 5 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday.
The Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer, with 2,088 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico.
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