The first of five new Target Stores...

The first of five new Target Stores scheduled for San Diego County by the end of 1987 will open July 26 at the former Gemco site on Mira Mesa Boulevard near Interestate 15, part of Target’s massive invasion of the California market after its acquisition last year of 55 Gemco locations.

Three of Target’s five new county locations--Mira Mesa, Encinitas and Oceanside--are former Gemco sites. Two others planned for Escondido and El Cajon are being built, Mira Mesa store manager John Osborne said. The Encinitas and Oceanside stores are scheduled to open in September, and the Escondido and El Cajon stores will open this fall.

Each Target store averages 100,000 square feet of space, 250 employees and $18-million sales per year, Osborne said.

Target’s parent company, Minneapolis-based Dayton Hudson Corp., bought the Gemco sites last year from Lucky Stores Inc.

Target, whose 242 stores nationwide generated 47% of Dayton Hudson’s $4.35 billion in revenues in fiscal 1986, will have opened 72 new stores nationwide by the end of this year, of which 55 will be in California, spokesman George Hite said Monday. The number of San Diego County stores will increase this year to 12 from seven.

The discount chain will have 91 outlets operating in the state by year’s end.