Following a year or so of successful occupancy and operations in the first phase of the shopping center, construction resumed in 1963 on its remaining retail components. By this time, Mr. Moss of the Food Center had concluded that he needed more floor space for his store so he reached an agreement with the Whaleys to also enlarge his store by 4800 sq. feet as part of the next phase of their project.
This expansion gave the Food Center a total of 10,000 sq. feet and allowed the business to offer its customers an array of groceries and home goods the likes of which had never been seen before in a single store in town. After expanding into the new space in 1964, the Food Center began billing itself as the “Largest Supermarket in Shelby County.” Times Printing Co. also benefited from this expansion. It provided them a much needed new staircase entrance from the street, new office space, as well as substantial additional square footage for equipment and paper storage.
The Whaleys continued their strategy of methodically completing their remaining buildings one after another. As a store space would be finished, its new occupant would move in and open for business.
Eddie Mahaffey’s Western Auto was an early occupant since he had to vacate the Albright building in order for it to be torn down. Harvey Rochester, who had been transitioning his dry goods business into a clothing store in the old Montevallo Mercantile building on Main Street, soon followed Mahaffey.
The smallest space on the Middle Street side of the shopping center was set up for offices by the Whaleys and they operated from one of them. State Farm agent Bill Weston moved into an office space here as did Attorney James Faulkner and Accountant John Owens.
The store space on the corner of the development was reserved for Jack Sims, the druggist and owner of Montevallo Drug Co. Even though he had recently gone through the recovery from fire and expense of remodeling of his smaller store on Main, he took advantage of this prime location and greatly enlarged floor space to give Montevallo a large, brightly lit drug store offering a much wider variety of consumer products that space limitations had prevented previously.
Interestingly, large soda fountains with plenty of clerks and “soda jerks” behind the counter scooping ice cream and making milk shakes had been a mainstay of drug stores in Montevallo for decades. It had not been that long since McClure Drug Co., Jack Sims’ main competitor across the street, had closed their fountain as a cost saving measure. Sims followed their lead by not including one in the plan for his new store, so when he opened for business, the only soda fountain still in operation in Montevallo was at Wilson Sundries on Middle Street.
Thank you Clay Nordan, Vice President of Montevallo Historical Society, for this information!