Also slated for the recently widened Orchard Road Corridor is the city's second Meijer food store is slated to be built north of the Home Depot at Orchard and Indian Trail roads; a new 127-room Hampton Inn & Suites, now under construction at the southwest corner of Interstate 88 and Orchard Road; a Marriott Courtyard is planned for Orchard Road north of Interstate 88 along with a Machine Shed Restaurant by Heart of America Restaurants & Inns. In addition, restaurants and other stores are planned for outlots around Home Depot's 20.5-acre site, and Meijer's.

The Home Depot also will have a 17,000-sf garden center. Steve Stephens, CCIM, of Stephens Commercial Real Estate brokered the deal. The Aurora store, the 37th opened by the Atlanta-based chain, will employ 150 workers, 120 of them full-time with benefits.

"The Orchard Road corridor is fast becoming a magnet for commercial development in the far western area," said Sherman L. Jenkins, executive director of the Aurora Economic Development Commission. "The area's demographics continue to be attractive to developers as Aurora's western frontier mirrors other development corridors in Aurora."