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POINCIANA, FL-After completing a 1.3-million-sf, $73-million regional distribution center at the Poinciana Office & Industrial Park here in 2003, Mooresville, NC-based Lowe's Inc. has started site work on an $18.5-million, 148,000-sf retail store and garden center at Poinciana Boulevard and Pleasant Hill Road. Store officials are targeting a first quarter 2007 opening date.

Coral Gables-based Avatar Properties Inc., which is developing Poinciana, sold Lowe's an 18.64-acre site for the new store. The indoor retail portion will be 148,000 sf; the outdoor garden center will be 31,000 sf. The company anticipates creating up to 175 new jobs. The new store will be about 60 miles south of Downtown Orlando.

Plans for the Poinciana project follow Lowe's withdrawal of plans for a 170,000-sf, $15-million store in Clermont, as GlobeSt.com previously reported. The South Lake County city bars big-box projects over 100,000 sf.