Lowe's, based in Wilkesboro, NC, and Hart Graphics, a defunct Austin printing company, had negotiated for several months before sealing the deal last week. The price was not disclosed.

Lowe's couldn't find a better spot, says Lance Morris, a vice president of Dallas-based Weitzman Group's Austin office. He wasn't involved in the deal. "Those opportunities, where you can tie up 16 acres in such a mature infill site, are very few and far between," he tells GlobeSt.com. "In my opinion, it couldn't be a better location."

Anderson Lane, just south of the site, has become a destination for home-furnishings shoppers, Morris says. Stores in that area include those of Louis Shanks, Norwalk, Ethan Allen, Skandinavia and Gage. "I think that will play quite nicely with Lowe's and what they do," he says.

A printing business had been on the site since at least 47 years when Steck Printing opened. In 1974, Bill Hart, a Steck employee, bought the company and renamed it Hart Graphics. Hart shut down in 2001 after it lost business to new technologies and was unable to find money to buy new equipment. Over the years, the company printed TV Guides, hardware and software manuals, catalogs and custom-printed materials.

Gail Whitfield of Austin-based Gail Whitfield Co. represented Lowe's and Royce Lacey of NAI/Commercial Industrial Properties Co. represented Hart. Whitfield tells GlobeSt.com that Lowe's will demolish the 162,000-sf main printing and warehouse building as well as several office buildings facing Shoal Creek Boulevard on the east. A 48,000-sf building that had housed Garden.com Inc. probably will be resold, she says.

Tawn Earnest, a Lowe's spokeswoman, said a standard sized 150,000-sf Lowe's store should open by early 2003. "We have three stores in Austin that are there and doing very well," she says. "It's been a good community for us and we've been successful there. So we were looking for opportunities to grow."

Lowe's rival, Home Depot Inc., has six stores in the area. Another competitor is Stripling-Blake, a hardware and lumber store founded in Austin 64 years ago and was acquired by BMC West in 1995. Its store is in the block north of the Lowe's site.

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Lowe's Makes Rare Buy for Its Fourth Austin Store

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