DaytonDailyNews.com

TIPP CITY — — A home improvement retailer is looking at a site west of Interstate 75 for what would be the city's first "big box" store.

Menards, a privately owned chain of home improvement stores in the Midwest with headquarters in Eau Claire, Wis., has four stores in Ohio, the closest in the Lima area. It is the third largest home improvement chain in the country behind Home Depot and Lowe's.

Menards spokesman Jeff Abbott said the company is expanding in Ohio, including new stores that will open in 2007 in Sidney and Marion. Construction is nearing completion on the Menards off Ohio 47, west of Interstate 75 in Sidney, said Lew Blackford, executive director of the West Ohio Development Council. That store is going up in a neighborhood that already includes a Super Wal-Mart, Lowes and Staples, he said.

Abbott said he could not comment on any plans for a Tipp City store.

Tipp City officials told City Council in recent memos that Menards filed for rezoning of two properties north of Ohio 571 in the area of Weller Drive, just west of I-75. The city planning board last week set a Dec 12 public hearing on the rezonings. If the project moves forward, Kinna and Weller drives would be extended north and Harmony Drive to the east, and a traffic study would be required.

City Manager David Collinsworth, assistant manager Brad Vath and City Planner Matt Spring visited three Menards stores in northwest Ohio earlier this month.

Vath said the Menards plans are in the "very early stages." The initial concept sketch shows a 160,000-square-foot store along with a 40,000-square-foot storage building (for lumber/building supplies).