ATLANTA, Sept. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Home Depot(R), the world's largest home improvement retailer, will open its first Home Depot Fuel store in Georgia today as the Company continues to increase service offerings to professional and do-it-yourself customers.
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The new Home Depot Fuel location, situated in front of The Home Depot retail store at 3355 Cobb Parkway in Acworth, comprises a 2,700-square-foot convenience store, a filling station and a car wash. The Home Depot has designed its Fuel stores with an eye on attracting business from contractors in addition to do-it-yourselfers and commuters.
Based on feedback from contractor focus groups, a separate diesel island was built at the Acworth Fuel location to allow professionals to fill up large vehicles with high-speed dispensers and pay with fleet cards. The car wash was built to handle large pickup trucks and vans, and the store offers giant containers of coffee and larger sizes of snacks for contractors to take to their job sites.
"The Home Depot Fuel strategy complements our recently announced plans to reinvest $350 million in our retail stores in the second half of 2006," said Jim Stoddart, senior vice president of Growth Initiatives at The Home Depot. "It's another way for us to continue to grow store revenue by delivering innovation, great value and one-stop-shop convenience to our customers. Plus it's no secret that the same contractors who spend a lot of time in our stores are also heavy customers of convenience stores."
Craig Lesser, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development, said the opening of the Acworth Fuel location is another sign of The Home Depot's commitment to the state. "The Home Depot is a great Georgia company that has proven to be innovative and customer-focused, which is why it is so successful," Lesser said. "As I travel the world talking about Georgia's thriving business climate, I consistently hold up The Home Depot as a shining example of a company that has used Georgia's advantages to grow from an entrepreneurial small business to a worldwide brand."
Home Depot Fuel is a new concept being tested by the Company. As The Home Depot evaluates the success of the Acworth location and others, it will decide whether to expand the concept to new markets. The Home Depot opened its first fuel locations in Brentwood, Tenn., and Hermitage, Tenn., earlier this year. The Home Depot projects that each fuel location, including the new Acworth store, will have revenue of $5 million to $7 million per year.
The Home Depot selected Acworth as the site of the first Home Depot Fuel in Georgia because of its location along a major corridor and the success of the existing Home Depot store. "We would like to especially thank Mayor Tommy Allegood and the city of Acworth for their great support in launching our first Fuel store in Georgia," The Home Depot's Stoddart said.
Home Depot Fuel has hired convenience store veteran Michael J. Kelley as manager of the Acworth Fuel location. The store will be open from 5 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday.
The Home Depot(R) is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer, with 2,088 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. Through its HD Supply(SM) businesses, The Home Depot is also one of the largest diversified wholesale distributors in the United States, with more than 900 locations in the United States and Canada offering products and services for building, improving and maintaining homes, businesses and municipal infrastructures. In fiscal 2005, The Home Depot had sales of $81.5 billion and earnings of $5.8 billion. The company employs approximately 355,000 associates and has been recognized by FORTUNE magazine as the No. 1 Most Admired Specialty Retailer and the No. 13 Most Admired Corporation in America for 2006. The Home Depot's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange and is included in the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index. HDG
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