Matt Hamilton/Daily Citizen-NewsAmerican Legion Post 112 honor guard members raise the American flag outside the new Food City on West Walnut Avenue on Tuesday.

DALTON, Ga. — The new Food City on West Walnut Avenue isn’t just another supermarket, according to Dalton Mayor Dennis Mock. It’s part of a major turnaround for one of the city’s key retail properties.

“Food City has transformed what was becoming near blight on one of our city’s gateways into a beautiful and functional piece of property,” Mock said Tuesday night.

Mock was one of several dozen elected officials and employees of the Food City store and its parent corporation and their families gathered at the store for a ribbon-cutting and flag-raising ceremony and open house. The store’s grand opening is today.

“We are really excited and can’t wait to open up the doors so the public can see what the store is like,” said store manager Jackie Dills.

The 48,600-square-foot store sits at the corner of Walnut Avenue and Tibbs Road, on the east end of where the Kmart was. It will be the company’s second store in Dalton and 131st store overall. There is also a store on Glenwood Avenue.

Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce President Rob Bradham also said the store’s opening represents a major step in revitalizing that property.

“You guys have taken a highly visible, very underutilized piece of property in this community and made it into something we can all be proud of,” he said.

Food City President and CEO Steve Smith said the city has welcomed Food City “with open arms.”

“We are going to have a fantastic store for folks to shop in,” he said. “We’ve got a great team of people.”

Smith said Food City is a family business.

“My father started the company back in 1955,” he said. “He was a Naval officer, graduated from the Naval Academy. He was an engineer by education but became a grocer because he found a need in the little town in Virginia where his parents lived and where he and my mom decided to come back to after his Naval career.”

Dills said the store will offer all of the normal products and services of a supermarket as well as a pharmacy.

Unlike the Glenwood Avenue Food City, he said, the Walnut Avenue store will offer the GoCart online ordering and curbside pickup service.

City Council member Gary Crews said he believes the store will attract customers who don’t necessarily live in Dalton.

“There are a lot of people who live out in the county or even in Catoosa County who drive down Walnut every day,” he said. “I expect some of them will stop in here because it’s convenient and on their way home.”

The store will employ 140. Dalton resident Sydney Harris is one of those employees.

“I’m very excited about the opening,” she said. “I won’t be opening (today). But I will be Friday.”

Harris said she has never worked in a supermarket before and said she is “a little nervous.”

The remaining portion of the Kmart building is being remodeled to accommodate PetSmart, Ross and Ulta. Ross is a discount department store chain headquartered in California, and Ulta is a chain of cosmetics and skincare stores based in Illinois.

PetSmart opened on Saturday. Jim Otis, an Omaha, Nebraska, developer, said Ross and Ulta should be opening in the coming weeks.