The new Walmart on Ala. Hwy. 157 in Cullman is already spurring some fresh development, and now another new restaurant is in the works to join the burgeoning retail corridor.

Developer Ingenium Enterprises has submitted a site plan to build a Panda Express restaurant in front of the Walmart, two parcels to the right of the new Verizon store set to open soon. The current plan calls for a 2,600 square-foot structure. The site plan is slated to go before the city planning commission on June 6. A message left at Ingenium was not returned by deadline.

Panda Express is an American Chinese fast-good restaurant chain founded in Glendale, California in 1983. There are approximately 1,740 Panda Express locations in the United States, offering entrees such as orange chicken,kung pa chicken, Beijing beef and eggplant tofu.

The area around the new Walmart is already showing some rapid retail growth, with the recent opening of a Zaxbys restaurant, plus the announcement of a Lawlers BBQ coming soon.