Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse Regional Distribution Center near Shannon has posted job vacancies for leadership positions, or coaches. To apply for the supervisory positions go online to www.lowes.com/careers.Next month, possibly as early as the middle of October, Lowe's will open the posting for team member positions, which will be the largest percentage of positions within the new facility.

Construction on the new distribution center began a year ago. The company is making a $125 million investment in the new center, which includes nearly 1.4 million square feet of space under one roof. The distribution center sits on a 133.2-acre site in the new North Floyd Industrial Park at the intersection of Ga. 140 and Ga. 53.

Lowe’s will make a $78,125 payment in lieu of taxes to the community annually from 2014 through 2022, when it will begin paying a full property tax load to Floyd County. The distribution center will begin paying a portion of county school taxes in 2016 and will be paying a full school tax bill by 2018, estimated to be about $900,000.

Officials could not say exactly when the center would open. When the doors first open, several hundred employees will have already been brought on line. Once the center opens, it will gently ramp up the numbers of stores across the Southeast that it services.

Ultimately, the company has pledged to hire 600 people within the next three years. The Memorandum of Understanding which helped guide the final development of the project calls for a base wage of $10.50 an hour for team members.

The Georgia DOT is in the latter stages of pre-acquisition of right of way for the State Route 140 project, and right-of-way staking has been completed. “The project is scheduled to be let to contract in July 2014. If all goes as planned, construction will begin shortly after a contract is awarded,” said Mohamed Arafa, district spokesman for the DOT.