CONCORD, N.C. — The spirit of Christmas, mixed with the sounds of tires is what you’ll find inside Punchy Whitaker’s Wheel & Tire Service in Concord.
What You Need To Know
On Wednesday Gov. Roy Cooper’s office announced Kroger would be building a new high-tech customer fulfillment center in Concord
This new facility is estimated to create nearly 700 jobs over the course of five years and help grow the state’s economy
Right now officials have not released where exactly this new facility will be located in Concord
These days you won’t find Whitaker fixing tires, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know a thing or two about them.
“I’ve been doing this since the mid-'60s, and back then they had three or four styles of wheels, and now they have hundreds,” he said.
Whitaker was only 12 when his dad opened this business, and since then he’s spent over 50 years making sure things still run.
“In those days when I first started I made $20 a day, and I thought that was a lot of money,” he said. “My daddy made a thousand dollars a month, and I thought, 'How in the world did anybody spend that much money?'”
The area Whitaker grew up in has changed dramatically over the years, and change is still coming.
On Wednesday, Gov. Roy Cooper’s office announced Kroger would be building a new high-tech customer fulfillment center in the city of Concord.
This new facility is estimated to create nearly 700 jobs over the course of five years and help grow the state’s economy.
Harris Morrison works for New Branch Real Estate, the company that sold the land for Kroger’s new facility.
“I think it’s just going to be a great project for our county, and it’s really going to set a new standard in how distribution of groceries and other products is managed,” Morrison said.
Morrison has spent the last 25 years working in commercial real estate and says big companies are attracted to all that Cabarrus County has to offer.
“There’s the roadway infrastructure,” he said. “Secondly it’s just a fantastic labor force. There’s a lot of good people here with skillsets, and they are going to contribute immensely.”
Whitaker is excited about the growth, but worried about how it could impact his and other small businesses.
“I’d love to see our officials do a little more to help the local businesses,” he said. “I know they help the big ones when they come in … but sometimes these business leaders lose the vision of home-owned businesses.”
Concord has seen a lot of changes, but Whitaker is hoping his business will continue on for as long as it can.
“We’ll probably be here another 60 years,” he said.
Right now officials have not released where exactly this new facility will be located in Concord, but those with Kroger say this facility will be 200,000 square feet.
It’s expected to open a year after the site breaks ground.