GUILDERLAND — Phillips Hardware has big plans for its Altamont location, which include a 10,000-square-foot store and corporate offices building and a 5,000-square-foot convenience store with gas station. It even hopes to have a drive-through fast-food restaurant.

The store intends to begin the process of seeking town approval for its plans shortly, said Owner/President Jonathan Phillips.

Phillips, who lives in and is raising his children in Guilderland, said that the family started out as gas fitters and locksmiths in downtown Albany in 1886. He is the fifth generation from his family to lead the business, which now has hardware stores at six locations.

This will mark the first time the company has had a “ground-up” building. “We’ve always bought existing stores. We’ve never stuck a shovel in the ground and started building,” he said.

The current store on the outskirts of Altamont, at the corner of routes 146 and 158, is 6,000 square feet, Phillips said. He hopes to build the new store building next to the current building, move into it, and then tear down the current store and make that the site of the convenience store–gas station.

Phillips has been partnering with Red Kap, a local petroleum and gas distributor on the plans for expansion into the new areas of business, he said.

The Altamont store would remain open throughout construction.

Corporate offices are currently housed in the Colonie store, but that store is closing soon. It is currently under contract to be sold, and Phillips hopes for a closing in about the second week of March. The company’s offices will move temporarily to Voorheesville until construction is finished on the new Altamont store.

The Colonie location that will be closing included a store, offices, a warehouse, and apartments, Phillips said. That site will be leveled and redeveloped.

The local company — which currently also has stores in Voorheesville, Schenectady, Delmar, and Waterford — thrives and survives by “trying to do what others don’t do, or going further than anybody else,” Phillips said.

He cited Phillips’s decisions to offer propane fill stations, a window repair service, small-engine repair, and Carhatt work apparel among the things that distinguish the company from larger stores. He also said that they have always been happy to fill hard-to-find or special-order items for customers.

Phillips said that he will soon be announcing other changes, including in “the way we operate the company.” He said that the ability to change and grow has kept the company strong over the “multiple chapters” of its history.

Phillips has been influenced in his decisions about the future direction of the company by his participation in an organization called Albany Entrepreneur Organization, which he called a peer-to-peer sharing group for leaders of companies that do “a million [dollars] or more in business a year.” He is currently president of the local chapter of this global organization.

He is “coming up with a three- to five-year plan for the company” that will involve “rebranding and remarketing and evolving.”

At the Altamont site, the company is currently working with site engineers, doing soil testing, and beginning site surveying. Phillips plans to get paperwork to the town soon, he said.

Town Planner Jan Weston said that she had heard rumors but not received any application yet, and so had no comment on the project.

Phillips, who has been president of the Guilderland Little League for 16 years, has five children, “so there may well be a sixth generation,” he said.

The reason for all these changes, he concluded, is “to guarantee that we’ll be around for a sixth generation in the Capital District.”