On a Thursday afternoon, workers at a new discount store shuffled boxes of merchandise through the door. A restaurant next door hustled to prepare food for the dinner rush and a worker at a wholesale shop helped a customer select a mattress.

But the activity wasn’t in a traditional retail area, but rather in a sector that was once a barren land for retail development that could be poised for “an explosion of growth.”

Several commercial developments are springing up along Louisville Road.

“Those areas that have not been served by retail - it’s just heartening to see that happening,” Mayor Elaine Walker said.

Shops are opening doors in developer Michael Barrick’s new 11,000-square-foot strip mall along Louisville Road. The retail center houses two discount shops, a restaurant, a hair salon, a window, door and siding shop, an appraisal office and an office for Barrick’s development company, Kentucky Avenue Interest.

“It’s been very strong,” he said. “The restaurant that opened two weeks ago, they’ve been lined up at the doors ... there’s a strong flow of people on this side of town.”

Barrick plans to start construction soon on another 8,000-square-foot retail center in front of the existing one. Right now, that center will house the Kentucky Probation and Parole office, possibly a wedding shop and other office tenants. Barrick expects to have the roof on that development by November.

He is also planning two other strip mall developments in the area, which should be completed in the next two years, he said.

“Most people are not aware that there is a 36,000 (vehicle) traffic flow in front of us every 24 hours,” he said.

Similarly, Jody Allen, owner of J Allen Builders and Kenway Contracting, said that stretch of Louisville Road is the third busiest roadway in Warren County.

“If you get another large tenant in the transpark, I think you’re one more big boom, like Magna (Bowling Green Metalforming), away from seeing another good build-up,” he said.

Allen’s company just completed a 9,000-square-foot office/warehouse building for a siding and window company. Late last year, he finished office and condo units along Louisville Road, and a couple have since sold. And he might help locate a restaurant chain in the area behind Sonic. Allen declined to name the restaurant, “but those prospects look really, really good,” he said.

“That corridor has been behind the curve in Bowling Green for a long time,” he said. “It was just a matter of time before it caught up.”

In the past five years, restaurant and retail chains such as Sonic, Pepper’s and Dollar General have popped up along Louisville Road. New developments are not high-end retailers but a blue collar retail mix that includes fast food and discount grocery stores, said Alex Nottmeier, a real estate broker with Neal Turner Realty.

“Primarily, what you’re seeing out there is it’s servicing the households in that area and servicing (workers at) GM and businesses in the transpark,” he said.

Nottmeier’s agency is constructing the new Whayne Supply building and a 100,000-square-foot warehouse for another tenant, whom he declined to name. Crossroads IGA is also slated to locate along Louisville Road.

These new developments, aside from expanding retail opportunities in the area, have helped keep the financial crisis from crippling Bowling Green, Walker said.

“When we have new jobs come into the area, that brings more employees, that supports the layers (of the local economy),” she said. “For us to grow into a regional retail center, we can really benefit from additional retail outlets. I’m just really excited about all we have going on.”

Still, Nottmeier said retail development on Louisville Road is not in the same league as retail areas such as those on Scottsville Road and Campbell Lane.

“Typically, retailers want to be focused around the retail hub, which would be Greenwood Mall,” he said.

But new residential developments along Louisville Road and Porter Pike, as well as jobs at the transpark, help spark commercial development, developers said.

“As rooftops continue to be built and we get more manufacturers in the transpark … If they just light the fuse, you’re going to see an explosion of growth up there,” Allen said.

Barrick said about 400 to 500 new homes have recently sprouted along Old Porter Pike and New Porter Pike roads, developments that will influence retail business and change the face of Louisville Road, he said.

Five years from now, “they won’t recognize it,” he said. “Over here, you’re going to see what happened on Scottsville Road 20 years ago.”