Auto parts store could open early

The O’Reilly Auto Parts store coming to Tucumcari is projected to open by February 2020, but a project manager with the chain said it may open in the fourth quarter this year if construction and permitting go smoothly.

O’Reilly Auto Parts store No. 5437 is slated at 1316 E. Tucumcari Blvd., the site of the now-closed Cactus RV Park. O’Reilly filed a business license with the city several weeks ago.

Jared Minor, a project manager with the Springfield, Missouri-based auto-parts chain, said in a phone interview he was hopeful final permits and reviews by the city and state would be issued in March and that construction would begin in April.

“It sounds like we’re in the final stages of the design phase,” Minor said.

Minor said if construction begins in April as hoped, it’s not out of the realm of possibility the store could open by late this year. It will depend on weather conditions and timely permits, he said.

Minor said O’Reilly is working with the city on a final design of the store. For now, he said, the chain will construct a 7,225-square-foot metal building on the site.

Minor said such stores typical employ about a dozen people.

The Cactus RV Park takes up three acres. Minor said the site is unusually large for an O’Reilly store, which means parts of the lot likely will be sold off to those interested in them once the site is developed.

The Cactus RV Park is the site of the long-closed Cactus Motor Lodge built in the 1930s. It once was in the Negro Motorist Green Book, an annual publication that listed businesses that were friendly to African-Americans during the Jim Crow era. The publication and such sites are receiving more attention in recent months because of the Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated film “Green Book.”

Minor said plans are for entire site to be demolished.

“We typically want to have a fresh start,” he said.

O’Reilly Auto Parts, founded in 1957 in Springfield, operates more than 5,100 stores in 47 states, including several in the Texas Panhandle. The next-closest store in New Mexico exists in Las Vegas.

“We look forward to being a part of the community,” Minor said.