PHOTO BY NUGESSE GHEBRENDRIAS/THE CLOVIS ROUNDUP
On Thursday July 18, the city of Clovis will welcome another Costco store to the area.
The new development on Clovis and Shaw, near Sierra Vista Mall will not only benefit the members of the community who will be customers, but also the local business environment around the new store.
“It’s going to be a big boost to the area in regards to other retailers wanting to be near Costco and continuing to show Clovis Avenue as a destination for retail. The corridor has been a retail destination since the 1970’s and Costco feeding into it is just a vote of confidence that provides certainty to other retailers and businesses in the area,” Andrew Haussler, Economic Development Director for Clovis said.
Costco has yet to open, but businesses around the area are already feeling the economic boost. There is a new Huckleberry’s restaurant opening next door, Hobby Lobby is being built in the same area and La Quinta Hotel, along with another hotel will be coming into the picture very soon.
Another exciting addition to the new Clovis Costco is that they are adding more gas pumps to the Clovis Avenue Costco. There will be 30 total at the new site, 18 more than the site on Ashlan and Peach.
“Having more pumps come online is a good thing and hopefully make it easier for people to get fuel, but that is one of many new gas stations yet to be opened within the city,” Haussler said.
A few Arco stations will be coming to Clovis soon, Haussler stated.
With all of the new developments around Clovis Avenue, the challenge of traffic might be an issue, but after extensive research by the city of Clovis, they are more than ready to help remedy that issue.
“Traffic was looked at pretty hard throughout the development process, we did a full traffic study,” Haussler said. “The area has been planned for commercial since the 70’s and the streets in that area were built to accommodate it. Clovis and Shaw are major thoroughfares and in addition to that, the traffic showed that we needed to do some work on the intersections to help cars move across those streets. Costco has invested in putting in two new signals, upgrading a signal and extending turn pockets along Clovis Avenue to the south at various points to help alleviate traffic concerns.”
On top of that, Costco has relied on data that shows where customers are coming from and a lot of the traffic heading to the older Costco on Ashlan and Peach was already traversing through Clovis Avenue and Shaw as it was.
Haussler believes that they can help lighten the load of traffic in the area after their research and planning.
“Hopefully, it will actually relieve a lot of pressure on the neighborhood and traffic on streets that aren’t built for that level of demand,” he said.
The opening ceremony begins at 8 a.m. on Thursday, July 18.