With more retailers opening in the Bird Creek area of southwest Temple and Market Heights in Harker Heights, Bell County residents will have more choices than ever before when they start Christmas shopping this season.

Bird Creek, anchored by Target, Home Depot and Best Buy, opened just before Christmas in 2007. And Market Heights, anchored by Target, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Old Navy, wasn’t open at all.

More than two dozen retailers and restaurants are doing business in Market Heights today.

The latest Census Bureau numbers indicate that Bell County has at least 900 retailers employing about 13,000 workers.

With all those choices, officials here are hoping “leakage” - the money that leaves Bell County for, say, Williamson County or Travis County - will be slowed this year.

“People need to realize they help themselves when they buy locally,” Ken Higdon, president of the Temple Chamber of Commerce, said Friday. A portion of the total sales tax collected by merchants is returned to city and county governments.

One goal in the city’s comprehensive plan is to keep more dollars in Temple.