Auto parts store still planned

Construction of a new O'Reilly Auto Parts store in Tucumcari still is planned after several delays, but an official with the company said it probably wouldn't open until the second quarter of 2021 at the earliest.

A 7,200-square-foot O'Reilly Auto Parts store No. 5437 is slated at 1316 E. Tucumcari Blvd., site of the now-abandoned Cactus RV Park.

O'Reilly filed a business license with the city in early 2019. Such stores typically employ about a dozen people.

O'Reilly's online planning room indicated bids to build the store were under review. The company received offers from contractors in Texas, Minnesota and Michigan before its bidding deadline of July 23.

"I think we're on the forward track now, so hopefully we'll get started soon," said Jared Minor, project administrator for the Springfield, Missouri-based chain during a telephone interview last week.

Minor acknowledged the coronavirus pandemic slowed the company's expansion efforts, including building the store in Tucumcari.

"We don't like excuses, but you've got to keep people safe and healthy," he said.

The Tucumcari store originally was slated to open in late 2019 or early 2020.

Construction also was delayed after Minor acknowledged difficulties in finding contractors. He said O'Reilly last year went through two rounds of bidding on the project, including asbestos abatement. Minor then anticipated completion of the store in April 2020.

Greg Johnson, CEO and president of O'Reilly Auto Parks, stated in a news release in April the company implemented several cost-saving steps, including "delaying discretionary capital investments," in the wake of a 13% drop in store sales from mid-March to mid-April because of COVID-19.

Johnson also said he was withdrawing the company's operating, cash flow and capital expenditures forecasts for 2020 "in response to the current environment."

The Cactus RV Park is the site of the long-closed Cactus Motor Lodge built in the 1930s. It once was listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book, an annual publication that compiled businesses friendly to African Americans during the Jim Crow era.

At least three other Green Book sites still exist in Tucumcari.

The Green Book received more attention in recent years because of the 2018 film "Green Book," which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and a book by Candacy Taylor, "Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America," published early this year.

The Cactus also is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, though the designation offers little protection. Minor previously said plans are for Cactus site to be demolished.

O'Reilly Auto Parts, founded in 1957, operates more than 5,400 stores in 47 states, including several in the Texas Panhandle. The next-closest store in New Mexico exists in Clovis or Las Vegas.