This is how Wolf Creek Marketplace operating manager Kevin Barclay describes his feelings about the opening of Basehor’s new grocery store.

“It’s been a long process, and it’s been very stressful,” Barclay said. “We’ll be glad, glad to have it all done.”

The store’s full staff — about 108 people — has been hired, Barclay said, and training started Tuesday for those employees such as checkers and baggers, who will be at the front of the store. Barclay said he and the rest of the Marketplace’s staff were crossing their fingers the store would be ready to open July 15.

“We’re really pushing to open next Wednesday,” Barclay said. “We have an ad dropping that day (in the Basehor Sentinel), so hopefully, that’s the day we open.”

June was originally the projected opening month, but Barclay said delays with the store’s electricity and refrigeration units pushed the big day back several weeks. The refrigerators were installed later than planned, and the units have to run for several days to make sure they’re functioning properly and cooling to the appropriate temperature.

“That’s where we’re at now,” Barclay said. “We’re watching those refrigerators because we don’t want to load them, and then we take everything out because they’re not working. Once that’s done, the electricians can pack up their stuff, and it will look more like a grocery store in there instead of a construction site.”

Another reason for the delay was recent rainfall, Barclay said. Wet weather prevented asphalt work and thus, kept the parking lot unfinished.

The food will come into the store in stages, Barclay said. First is the dry food, which Barclay says store managers have already been putting on the shelves. After the dry food, and when the fridges have the green light, dairy products will fill the cold confines.

About five or six days before the grocery opens, workers can begin stocking deli meat and frozen food. Produce is the last component, to come one or two days before the first customers walk through Wolf Creek’s doors.

Barclay said the store would open at 8 a.m. on its first day and would be open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day afterward.

The store’s public reveal will most likely be preceded early that day with a special observance commemorating the event.

“We hope to have some kind of ceremony, or something,” Barclay said. “Maybe have the mayor there for a ribbon cutting.”

Until then, Barclay and his team will be completing the last projects and polishing the final fixtures, looking forward to the day they can announce the debut of Basehor’s first grocery since 2001.

“I think our ad (in the paper) will say ‘a long time coming’ instead of ‘grand opening,'” he said. “Because that’s exactly what it’s been: a long time coming.”