FORECOURT retailer Maxol is to create 60 new jobs at it largest ever development in Northern Ireland.
The company is spending £3.75 million at a 2.5 acre site on the main A26 between Antrim and Ballymena.
Maxol said the Tannaghmore development would be a "motorway-style service station" featuring well-known franchises for eating on the premises or to take-away.
It has appointed Lowry Building & Civil Engineering as its main contractors to develop the station with work already under way.
The development is expected to be completed by the spring.
Maxol chief executive Brian Donaldson said the announcement "comes on the back of a rolling programme of around £95m worth of investment we have made in introducing our new modern forecourt identity across Ireland and in acquiring 17 new properties and developing a further 15 service stations since 2012.
"Our first award winning large scale motorway style services area, which opened this year at Mulhuddart on the M3, south-west of Dublin, is popular for its extensive forecourt services, retail and fresh food dining and we are looking forward to bringing this successful model here to Northern Ireland."
The Maxol Group was established in 1920 by William McMullan and is now in its fourth generation under family ownership.
The overall group had turnover of around €650m (£578m) in 2015 while it provides work for more than 1,500 people across Ireland.
Maxol has a network of 236 convenience destinations, of which 111 are company owned.
Around 95 of those sites are in Northern Ireland where the firm last year swung back into profit making £1.3m last year following a £4.4m loss recorded in 2014.
Notes with accounts filed at Companies House said the "apparent significant increase in year-on-year profit is due to a large exceptional cost in the 2014 accounts attributed to the wind up of the company's defined benefits pension scheme".
The business in the north reported an almost 19 per cent drop in turnover over the year to £161.3m.
