Work getting started at Tractor Supply Co. site

In case you missed it, Tractor Supply Co. is coming to town.

Days ago, the first signs of activity began to appear at the site near the village-town border.

Workers from Bast Hatfield began cutting trees to make a path for a large culvert pipe which will run underneath the finished project when the store finally opens its doors some time in the fall.

A long row of concrete pipes could be seen stacked along the southern edge of what the Schuyler Company is now calling Village Plaza.

“I don’t know the exact date, maybe somebody else does,” Bast Hatfield site superintendent Al Arnold said Monday regarding the opening of the store.

“The last I knew, last conversation I had with them, they were hoping to be up and running by this fall,” Mayor Brian LaRose said.

Arnold said as the general contractor Bast Hatfield has a few more days of preparation work on one portion of a larger job as a part of the overall preparation for the store expansion. Arnold took a break from using an excavator to fill a large dump truck with debris to talk about the work taking place at the site.

The final storefront will expand out about 60 feet south from the current wall when work is complete.

Beyond the expanded storefront will be a large outside display area atop an area that has yet to be built.

The site of current work will eventually be under ground, Arnold said after backfilling is completed to make way for the new foundation. All business as usual for the company and a project of this size, he said.

Local officials are as excited as the public regarding the activity.   

 “That’s going to be a major project, it’s going to be very visible and very active down there” LaRose said Friday.  

“Things are starting to happen down there and the village is excited about that,” he said. Arnold said despite just a few days work at the site he had already met a lot of people as the curious come up to the site to get a closer view.