POULSBO — Wal-Mart and The Home Depot will be joined by a third national retailer on the hill overlooking Little Norway.

OfficeMax, a national office supply store, is expected to begin construction this summer and could open before the end of the year.

“It was one of our target markets, and we’re very pleased to be here,” said OfficeMax Northwest real estate manager Bob Stevenson.

Construction on the 18,000-square-foot store should begin shortly, and it will be similar to all of its nationwide counterparts, he said.

The addition of the office supply store retailer is in keeping with the development’s master plan, which provides a blueprint for the entire area, said First Western Investments president Mark Zenger.

“It’s a good step, because it brings in a new anchor tenant,” he said. “It also provides a service that people were having to drive to Silverdale and Bremerton for.”

The more large retailers that locate in the College Marketplace, the more ancillary and smaller businesses will be brought to the area, he said.

“It’s all adding to the overall picture,” Zenger said.

Another aspect of the project is the planned hotel and quality sit-down restaurant, which are also part of the College Marketplace Master Plan.

“We’re still talking with the hotel folks, and we should have that done in the next few weeks,” he said. “We also have been working on bringing a couple of tenants into the business park.”

However, the only project that should begin construction this year is the OfficeMax location, Zenger said.

“I don’t think anyone wants to begin construction in September,” he said.

The project’s approval is the culmination of several years of work, said Marty Nelson of The Union Group, which is constructing the building.

“We’ve been looking for a suitable anchor tenant, and we came up with OfficeMax,” Nelson said.

While the office supply store will fill 18,000 of the 42,000 square-feet available, the second retail anchor hasn’t been announced yet, he said.

“We are in the process of negotiating with other tenants, but we do have some space available,” Nelson said.

While greeting word of the office supply retailers arrival to Poulsbo warmly, Councilman Ed Stern said he is more excited about the interest in the development’s business park.

“The best is yet to come,” Stern said. “There are some companies that are very interested in the fiber optics.”