Another important step soon will be taken to prepare for the construction of a major retail store in Chardon. Loreto Development Co. is getting ready to sell 18.5 acres to Meijer for its new supercenter. That property is located on the southwest corner of Water Street and Loreto Drive. “We’ve owned this parcel since the early 1990s and are super excited that the premier retailer Meijer will be coming to Chardon,” said Loreto Iafelice, president of Willoughby Hills-based Loreto Development Co. “We are thrilled that they picked our site.” Iafelice said he anticipates that the sale of the property will be completed in the first week of December. Meijer is aiming to acquire the land to build a nearly 160,000-square-foot supercenter. The Chardon store will sell groceries and general merchandise and include a pharmacy and garden center. A detached 3,373-square-foot mExpress gas station and convenience store also will be constructed on the property. The Chardon Planning Commission, during a meeting in late October, approved a final development plan and architectural review for the Meijer store. However, even after securing the panel’s authorization on these two items, Meijer didn’t receive permission to begin construction. In fact, the company still must provide the city of Chardon with a set of much more comprehensive construction plans. “Meijer’s architects and engineers now have to do the final, full-blown construction documents and civil engineering drawings,” said Chardon Community Development Administrator Steven Yaney. “And those will come back to the city.” Review and approval of those construction documents will be done at the staff level in Chardon city government. Meijer will determine its own schedule of when they will complete the final construction plans, said Yaney, who is employed in the city’s Planning and Zoning Department. “They have to close on the sale of the property and then do the documentation,” he said. “And then it’s just a matter of how long it takes them to do the documents. And really when they want to start construction.” Meijer External Communications Manager Erin Cataldo said it was too early to begin talking about timelines for the final construction plans, since the company hasn’t purchased the land for its Chardon store. As far as the number of jobs that will be created when the business opens, Cataldo said each Meijer supercenter generally has about 250 employees. Meijer, which is based in Grand Rapids, Mich., operates more than 500 supercenters, grocery stores, neighborhood markets and express locations throughout the Midwest. In May of 2019, Meijer opened a supercenter in Mentor, at the former Kmart site on Mentor Avenue. The company has been privately owned and family operated since its founding in 1934.