DALTON, Ga. — Food City President and CEO Steve Smith said he’d hoped to have the new Food City on West Walnut Avenue, on the former site of the Kmart, open in time for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

“But the weather didn’t cooperate with us,” he said. “I was in your fair city last week, and it is not even near to completion. I do not know how many inches of rain y’all have gotten, but it has certainly been a wet summer and fall. It got everybody behind.”

Food City is building a 48,000-square-foot store on the east end of where the Kmart was. The remaining portion of the Kmart building is being remodeled to accommodate Ulta, Ross and PetSmart. Ross is a discount department store chain headquartered in California, and Ulta is a chain of cosmetics and skincare stores based in Illinois.

Jim Otis, an Omaha, Nebraska, developer, is handling that work as well as four outbuildings, one of which will contain Rak Outfitters. He said rain has slowed those parts of the project as well.

“It has set back our ability to get the underground stormwater detention in,” he said.

Smith said he expects the Food City to be completed in early January and to open in mid-January.

“It’s hard to have an opening right at the beginning of the year because of Christmas,” he said.

Signs at the site indicate the store is already seeking job applicants. People can apply at foodcity.com/careers.

“We will be interviewing folks probably in the second and third week of November. We’ve got about a 10-week training period, so we want to get them on board,” Smith said.

Otis said the other stores should open in the first quarter of 2019.

“Ulta and PetSmart should open shortly after Food City,” he said. “We will turn Ross over to them Feb. 11, and it will take them a couple of weeks to fixture the store and open. The Rak building is ready to go.”

Otis said he can’t yet reveal who will be in the remaining three outbuildings.

“But we are really down to one vacancy,” he said.