SUN NEWS ----- North Myrtle Beach, SC — Publix
likes to make itself known when it opens its first store in a new
market, so Tuesday at Coastal North Town Center on U.S. 17, the
company’s divisional officials, local political, business and
educational dignitaries gathered for a sneak preview of the store that’s
to open to the public at 7 a.m. Wednesday. The nearly
50,0000-square-foot store includes enough items to keep shoppers busy
for hours, and officials took the dignitaries on a tour of the store’s
highlights. The Publix will be the latest in a line of new
groceries to open along the Grand Strand, including a new Lowe’s Foods
in Carolina Forest, a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market and a Fresh Market.
Two more new groceries are in the works, one at Farrow Parkway and Fred
Nash Boulevard and another at 82nd Parkway and Kings Highway. Publix
plans to open its second area store in Pawleys Island during the first
quarter of next year. “Competition is always good,” Chuck Roskovich, Charlotte division vice president for Publix, said at Tuesday’s festivities. The
store will have 150 employees, and Roskovich said that the Publix chain
has never laid off an employee in its 84-year history. Store hours are 7 a.m. to 10 p..m., seven days a week. During
the preview ceremony, the store presented $500 checks to each of six
North Myrtle Beach area schools: North Myrtle Beach middle and high
schools, Ocean Drive Elementary, Riverside Elementary, Waterway
Elementary and The Lord’s Children, a private elementary school.
