Tractor Supply Co. Opening New Store in Great Barrington
- September 15, 2018
- Uncategorized
- Posted by clangan
- Leave your thoughts
GREAT BARRINGTON — A national chain that sells everything from horseshoes to chicken feed to beekeeping supplies is coming to Barrington Plaza on Stockbridge Road early next year.
Tractor Supply Co. will open next door to the new Marshall’s, likely in mid- to late February, depending on town permitting and construction timelines, according to Jeff Stiles, current manager of the Pittsfield store, who will also manage the Great Barrington store.
The company’s website calls Tractor Supply Co. a “rural lifestyle supply store” that sells “everything except tractors.” The store specializes in farm products, but also sells household items, garden tools, chainsaws, apparel and tractor parts, which it had begun doing in 1938 as a mail-order business.
At a Thursday site plan review, the town Planning Board unanimously gave the store a positive recommendation to the town Select Board, which will decide whether to issue its permit to operate.
The Great Barrington store will be the company’s third in Berkshire County — it also has outlets in North Adams and Pittsfield — and it will fill the remaining 28,000-square-foot space left vacant by the former Kmart. Discount clothing and housewares store Marshall’s opened last year, and took over 24,000 square feet of that now-divided space.
Plaza owners are delighted, just as former owners Kimco Realty Corp. were when Marshall’s decided to come on board.
“It helps fill the void left by Kmart,” said David Wright, of Paragon Realty Group, LLC of Westport, Connecticut. A local affiliate of Paragon, known as Great Barrington Real Estate, purchased the Plaza in January for $16.1 million.
“It fills a gap in the market,” Wright added. “It will drive shoppers to the shopping center, so that will help the other businesses.”
The Plaza now has two vacant spaces left, Wright said.
Jeff Stiles, manager of the Pittsfield Tractor Supply Co. store, said he will also manage the Great Barrington store. Stiles said the most popular products are birdseed, chicken and horse feed, and dog food.
When asked if some of these products would compete with the Pet Valu store in the Plaza, Wright said he is “confident” that this won’t be an issue.
The store may, however, compete with Agway, on the other side of town, which also sells farm feeds and farm animal accessories, pet food and gardening supplies.
Tractor Supply, which will add this to its 1,700 stores operating in 49 states, will have an outdoor display and pickup area at the rear of the store for equipment like lawn mowers, that will be enclosed by a chain-link fence.
Paragon owns shopping centers in 11 states. This is the company’s first property in Massachusetts, and the town’s second highest taxpayer.
