A new Ross Dress for Less store just opened in fast-growing Sahuarita.
The store will be a time and money saver for the town's residents, said Kathy Ward, Sahuarita's manager of economic development and communications.
"We are significantly underserved when it comes to retail products," she said. "Having a department store is huge for us."
"Mainly we have families with young children," Ward noted. "To be able to shop locally gives them more free time than having to leave the area."
Bobbi Chaville, a spokeswoman for Ross Stores Inc., said the high-growth area south of Tucson is clearly an underserved market. "It will be great to capture that business," she said.
The 27,000-square-foot store in the Sahuarita Plaza shopping center sells name-brand merchandise for men, women and children at prices 20 percent to 60 percent less than department stores, said Chaville. The store also has an accessory and home department.
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Chaville said the Sahuarita location is the company's 56th Arizona store.
"We're really happy to be there," she said. "We're excited to offer the local customers a shopping alternative."
In addition to the Ross store, a Big Lots opened last November in the same plaza. The two stores together helped fill a 70,000- square-foot space left by American Home Furnishings after it closed down in late 2008, said Ward.
She said 4,500 square feet remains from that space, and that the town will likely target a restaurant to fill it.
There is also still a vacant space left by a closed Bashas' grocery store that is being actively marketed, Ward said.
"I know some companies are looking at it but haven't signed any letters of intent," she said.
Ward said that an almost 700 percent increase in population in the town since the year 2000 led to 14 new retailers opening up in Sahuarita during recessionary times.
"We will get much more retail when the market turns, and I think it is turning," she said. "It's going to take a bit longer to get to Arizona but I think it's coming. I know it's coming."
Rikki Mitchell is a University of Arizona journalism student and a NASA Space Grant intern. Contact her at rmitchell@azstarnet.com