FLORENCE - Home-improvement giant Home Depot will build a store in Florence. The new store will be built on property adjacent to the General Electric manufacturing plant on Radio Road.

"We just got the lease in on Home Depot," Magnolia Mall general manager Stacie Dickerson said. Magnolia Mall is owned by Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, which also owns the property where Home Depot will build.

Dickerson said the company will build a 104,000-square-foot store, plus a 28,000-square-foot garden center. The property will include several other retail outparcels and several restaurants.

Dickerson was quoted in the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce's newsletter as saying that restaurant chains Olive Garden, Chili's and O'Charley's also would build restaurants on the land. She told the Morning News, however, that none of those restaurants has committed to building yet.

"It would be safe to say we'll be putting in some national chain restaurants, and some additional retail," Dickerson said.

Home Depot is the second national home improvement chain to locate in Florence. Lowe's Home Improvement has been in the market for years, with one store on David McLeod Boulevard. The company built a second store in the market several years ago in South Florence.

GE sold the property adjacent to its plant two years ago in a nationwide reduction of surplus property.

Since the sale, Home Depot has been the subject of speculation about how the property would develop.

Dickerson said she was not sure when construction on the store would begin.

"I know they're anxious to get started, so I imagine they'll be breaking ground very soon," Dickerson said.

The news that Olive Garden is considering a restaurant on the property isn't surprising either.

The company confirmed in 2005 that it was planning to build a restaurant in Florence, but hadn't settled on a location.

The news of another major national retailer deciding to build in Florence solidifies the city's reputation as a retail hub of a much larger area.

Increasingly, national retail chains are not just looking at the population of Florence County when considering where to build. They're looking at the retail potential of the entire Pee Dee.

According to the South Carolina Department of Revenue, Florence County accounts for roughly half of the annual retail sales in a seven-county area.

That is why retailers that would normally not consider building in a town the size of Florence are now looking at the region.