Work is in full swing to clear out a portion of what used to be Country Mart in Iola’s shopping plaza on North State Street.
Noal Barnes and Jake Mitchell of Foulston Construction, Wichita, figure they have a month of work left to strip a portion of the building down to its steel skeleton.
The work will precede a renovation project in order to open a Dollar Tree franchise, Barnes said.
“For a building this old, it’s in good shape,” Barnes said.
The full-scale renovation will include new wiring and plumbing. Crews also will cut out a portion of the east wall, and replace it with a glass front.
The Dollar Tree layout will cover the northernmost sections of the old Country Mart floor plan — essentially where the deli and frozen foods sections were located.
Barnes gave no prediction on how long the renovations will take.
“They have another crew that does all that,” he said. “They work pretty quickly.”
The shopping plaza was built in 1975, serving as home for TG&Y and then Country Mart. That portion of the plaza has been idle for nearly 10 years, since the grocery store closed.
PICTURE — Noal Barnes of Foulston Construction, Wichita, cuts away at a wall inside the old Country Mart portion of the Iola Shopping Plaza on North State Street. Barnes is among the workers preparing the building for what will become home to a Dollar Tree franchise.
