Costco puts in new plans for a warehouse store in Richland County

Premier wholesale warehouser Costco has submitted revised plans for building its first Midlands store in northwest Richland County.

The revised plans, submitted to the Richland County Department of Planning and Development this week, are under review, said Richland County spokeswoman Beverly Harris. “If the revised plans meet all county regulations, they will be approved and Costco can start the process of development,” Harris said.

The store would be built at Piney Grove Road and Fernandina Road near Harbison.

Costco, based in the northwestern U.S. in Issaquah, Wash., has been courted by Richland County shoppers for a decade. The company has long been widely viewed as a missing link in the rising retail ranks of the Midlands, a growing metropolitan area approaching 1 million residents with $2.8 billion in annual retail sales.

Costco’s projected entry into the Midlands retail market would be self-propelled, county officials have said lately. Unlike a previous overture to locate in Richland County, no county-provided financial incentives are connected to Costco’s latest plans, Harris said, and Costco has not requested any economic incentives.

Efforts Tuesday to reach Costco for comment were unsuccessful.

Costco is a popular members-only warehouse club that features a wide selection of items for shoppers.

In July, the company reported $8.6 billion in sales, a 1 percent increase from July 2014. Yearly sales totaled nearly $105 billion, up 3 percent from the previous year, according to Market Wired financial reports.

The company operates 680 warehouses worldwide including 480 in the United States. Costco operates four South Carolina stores: Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Greenville, and Spartanburg.

In 2013, Costco sought to build a store at the Piney Grove Road and Fernandina Road site by seeking through a developer a $10 million financial incentive from the county, two Richland County council members told the The State. In those negotiations, the county, which routinely does not provide financial economic incentives to business to locate here, was prepared to supply $3 million in incentives.

Harris said the latest revisions to the construction plan address some of the landscaping requirements and engineering issues at to the site.

County officials say the two sides are “very close” and the deal this time is most likely to jell. A developer working with Costco on the 2013 effort to bring the store to Richland County said the business would employ about 200 workers and create about $7 million in sales taxes annually.

“I am supportive and I’m very excited about them coming to Richland County and bringing jobs and offering another option for consumers,” said Richland County Councilman Seth Rose.

This story was originally published August 11, 2015 at 6:09 PM with the headline "Costco puts in new plans for a warehouse store in Richland County."