The nation's second-largest discount retailer, Target Corp., is moving forward with plans for a store at the former Costco site at Bougainville Industrial Park, after recently completing a deal for the Salt Lake property.

Target said it will share store plans at an Aliamanu/Salt Lake/ Foster Village Neighborhood Board meeting next week, and declined to comment before the community presentation.

In March, the company announced that it was negotiating for the Salt Lake property, and said it was looking at opening a store there and in Kapolei in the first half of 2009.

Grant Tanimoto, former chairman of the area neighborhood board, previously met with Target officials, and said the company indicated that it plans a typical general merchandise store, as opposed to its SuperTarget format that includes a full line of food.

"I'm looking forward to it," he said. "I think the more (shopping) choices, the better."

Tanimoto added that the site has been vacant so long that its reuse will be positive, though how much traffic Target draws is a potential concern. Tanimoto said Costco generated traffic that in his view flowed relatively well.

Target plans some changes to the Costco property and was working on a traffic study, said Tanimoto, who retired from the neighborhood board May 31 after 13 years.

More details are expected when Target addresses the neighborhood board on June 14. The meeting will be in Aliamanu Middle School's cafeteria at 3271 Salt Lake Blvd. and starts at 7 p.m. Typically, presentations start at 8 p.m.

Target had been studying the Salt Lake site for at least a year. According to property records, Target recently assumed a lease for part of the nearly 10-acre property from Kamehameha Schools valued at $22 million, and purchased another piece from local real estate development firm The MacNaughton Group for $6.4 million.

The MacNaughton Group developed the site for Costco, which opened its first Hawai'i store there in 1988.

Costco closed the store in 2002 in a move to maximize sales with a bigger store and gas station in Iwilei, and the Bougainville site has gone mostly unused since then.

The old Costco building is 131,000 square feet, of which Costco used 110,000 square feet for retail.

The average Target store has 123,000 square feet of retail space. Target's Kapolei store is expected to be 160,000 square feet.

Target also is exploring prospects for other stores, including sites on the Big Island and Maui.

Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com.