A hardware retailer from Phoenix plans this summer to open an Ace Hardware store in a former Albertsons Inc. supermarket space on Spokanes South Hill.


The retailer, The Jant Group Inc., of Phoenix, has subleased Albertsons former store space in the Southgate Center, which is at the southwest corner of 44th Avenue and Regal Street, says Martin Ruggiero, who owns Jant Group with his brother, Art.


The 40,000-square-foot space has been vacant since the summer of 2000, when Albertsons moved to a larger new space in the Cedar Canyon Shopping Center, at 57th Avenue and Regal.


Ruggiero says Jant Group signed a lease this week for the Southgate store and plans to begin making tenant improvements on the property soon. The new hardware store, which will be called South Hill Ace Hardware, is scheduled to open there in early August.


Ruggiero says the store will be designed in whats referred to as a Super Ace Hardware format that is used at larger Ace stores. Such stores carry a larger assortment of hardware goods than is available at a typical neighborhood Ace outlet. Those bigger stores also stock some decorator materials, pet supplies, and a limited amount of building materials.


Such an outlet typically employs about 40 people, he says.


Jant Group began looking into opening a store on the South Hill after learning at a national Ace Hardware convention that Aces corporate staff was looking for an operator to open an outlet in that part of Spokane.


The competition on the South Hill is very limited, Ruggiero says. We feel like this is an excellent location.


Heights Home Center & Nursery, a large hardware store located near the southeast corner of 29th Avenue and Southeast Boulevard, roughly a mile south of the proposed Ace Hardware site, closed in spring 2000.


Jant currently owns and operates one store, AB Ace Hardware, in Mesa, Ariz. Other retailers operate four Ace Hardware stores in the Spokane area.