Residents in Athens and Limestone County may soon have another option when it comes to meeting their hardware needs.

According to a public notice running in today’s edition of The News Courier, Harbor Freight Tools and the City of Athens are working on an agreement that could potentially bring a new location of the popular hardware store franchise to 799 S. Clinton St., near Aldi.

“It’s been a project we have been working on for several months now” Mayor Ronnie Marks said.

According to the notice, a public hearing to discuss the project will take place at 5:30 p.m. during the Athens City Council’s Dec. 14 meeting. The Council will “consider adopting a resolution in connection with an economic development project.”

Marks said he hopes the project will go through.

“It will give us the opportunity to provide our citizens with another option and provide another revenue stream for Athens,” he said. “We have heard the request to bring Harbor Freight to Athens on and off for about a year, and the opportunity came up.”

According to the notice, the project is expected to create approximately 40 jobs, encompass 15,000 square feet of retail space and generate annual taxable sales of $3.5 million.

“We have sent an agreement, and we are looking at a sales tax rebate as an incentive to help them with site infrastructure,” Marks said.

According to the notice, the City would agree to return 100% of city sales tax proceeds from the business for either a period of three years or until $300,000 has been returned to the company (Akin Holdings Athens, LLC), whichever comes first.

“The obligation of the City in this regard would be evidenced by the issuance of a warrant,” said the notice. “The City’s payment obligations would be conditioned upon the operation of the Harbor Freight Tools retail store at the above-described property, as described in more particularity in the Project Development Agreement, among other things.”