Businessman who loves hardware to open new Ace Hardware near Mountain Brook

Birmingham businessman Don Compton loves hardware and hardware stores.

“Walking around a store filled with hammers, ladders and tools is the same experience little kids have when wandering through a toy store,” he said.

Hardware has also been part of a nearly lifelong desire for Compton.

“It has long been my dream to own a neighborhood hardware store since I was very young, but I waited for the perfect location and opportunity,” he said.

Compton, who operates eight other Ace Hardware locations and four CC Food Mart convenience stores in Birmingham, has finally found a place to fulfill that dream.

Compton Ace Hardware announced in May that it had signed a lease with Continental Realty Corporation (CRC) for 10,395 square feet of space in The Shops on Montevallo.

The Shops on Montevallo, located at 4500 Montevallo Road near Mountain Brook, is a neighborhood shopping center measuring 65,000 square feet.

The location is perfect, Compton said.

The store is centrally located near Irondale, Eastwood and Crestwood, as well as Crestline and the rest of Mountain Brook, one of the metro area’s wealthiest neighborhoods.

The retail center “reaches an extremely broad economic area ranging from $30,000 annual households to those approaching $500,000,” Compton said.

More than 7,000 households are contained within a three-mile radius with average household incomes approaching $85,000, according to a CRC news release.

”I think there is a void that we are going to fill in that area as far as a quality hardware store,” Compton said.

He also wants the store to provide the personal service one would expect from a neighborhood retailer.

“We intend to satisfy the needs of each customer with personalized service and knowledge of our craft,” he said. “That is what will separate us from the experience at big-box hardware stores.”

Ace Hardware will carry such brand names as Benjamin Moore, Big Green Egg, Craftsman, DeWalt, Scotts, Weber and Yeti.

The new store should be a strong addition to The Shops on Montevallo, said David Donato, CRC senior vice president.

“Based on its strong brand recognition and commitment to customer service, we believe its presence will serve as a junior anchor for the shopping center,” Donato said.

Compton’s store, which he hopes to open by the first of November, will have 10 employees initially with more expected to be hired in the future.

Ace Hardware will take over the space formerly occupied by Bedzzz Express, which will relocate to a different part of the shopping center.

The store will occupy both the Bedzzz Express space and three other adjacent vacant suites, Compton said.

Compton said he is “very, very familiar” with the area near The Shops on Montevallo.

Now a Hoover resident, Compton lived within a mile of the new store for many years and raised his children there.

Now he can serve what he calls his old “stomping grounds” with the hardware he loves.

“You know the slogan of Ace Hardware is ‘the helpful hardware place,’ and that is what we feel that the folks in that area are longing for,” Compton said.