DALTON, Ga. — Food City President and CEO Steve Smith promised Thursday that the store planned for West Walnut Avenue will be a “first-class supermarket employing a first-class group of teammates.”

Smith spoke at the groundbreaking for the store, which will anchor a shopping center being built in the site of the former Kmart.

“We will be here with Ulta and Ross and PetSmart, and we think this will be a very attractive place for the residents of Dalton to shop,” he said.

Ross is a discount department store chain headquartered in California, and Ulta is a chain of cosmetics and skincare stores based in Illinois.

The eastern part of the Kmart building has been torn down to make way for the Food City. Jim Otis, the Omaha, Neb., developer who is developing the site, has said the remainder of the building will be remodeled for PetSmart, Ross and Ulta.

Gib Roland, owner of Calhoun-based Rak Outfit-ters, has also confirmed his Dalton store will be moving from the Kroger Shopping Center across the street into a new, 6,000-square-foot building on the site.

Smith said the 48,000-square-foot Food City should be open in about six months and will create 135 new jobs.

“It will be an extremely nice store with a sit-down cafe, a full-service bakery and deli. We’ll also have full-service meat and seafood. All of our meat will be cut on site with trained butchers. You can come in and have your meat cut while you wait or while you shop. We’ll also have a full-service pharmacy,” Smith said.

Food City purchased the Kmart’s pharmacy before it closed and transferred prescriptions to the Food City store on Cleveland Highway. Smith said the pharmacy has kept about 75 percent of those customers. He said those customers will have the option of remaining at the Cleveland Highway store or transferring those prescriptions to the West Walnut Avenue store.

“This is an exciting day for Dalton,” said Mayor Dennis Mock. “This (Walnut Avenue) is the busiest corridor in Dalton, and it has long needed something like this on this site.”

Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce President Rob Bradham agreed.

“This is one of our major intersections, and this corner of it has long been underutilized. We are so pleased that Food City is investing in our community,” he said.