Home Depot's West Hills Park tract neighbors an Office Depot, Luby's, Chili's, Blockbuster, Denny's, IHOP and Holiday Inn Express. Gary Goff of Curtis Development tells GlobeSt.com that he started the land bank more than five years and has 15 acres of prime frontage tracts left to hawk in the Interstate 45-Texas 30 project area. Goff wouldn't tell the sales price, but the 12-acre Home Depot tract was advertised at $7.50 per sf. The smaller parcels carry asking rates ranging from $12 per sf to $18 per sf. Home Depot is shooting for a June 1 opening.

To shore up the Home Depot deal, Curtis Development negotiated a joint participation agreement with the City of Huntsville to extend Veterans Memorial Parkway from the new US Post Office to the Interstate 45 feeder road just north of Home Depot's tract. The road extension will be completed April 25. Goff says the intersection is the leading growth corridor in Huntsville. The state Department of Transportation has agreed to change the interstate feeder roads to one-way traffic, construct U-turn lanes at Texas 30 and relocate the access ramps. Thus, Goff's retail project area will be accessible by southbound traffic via the new off-ramps and northbound traffic via the Texas 30 exit and new extension of Veterans Memorial Parkway.

Still to come, Goff says, are joint venture plans between the city and the development company to build a hotel, multi-level office building, convention center, movie theater and more retail space behind and adjacent to Home Depot. That leg of the project will gain Goff's full attention after the other acreage is sold and could start unfolding at the end of 2003.