Traders have promised it will be business as usual when a section of Midsomer Norton's South Road car park closes for underground investigations next week.
The left-hand side of the car park will close for three to four days from Monday for exploration work under the spot where the town's gasometers once stood.
Test holes will be dug in an area covering around 100 of the 241 spaces in preparation for the land being sold off to make way for a 45,000 sq ft supermarket.
Bath and North East Somerset Council agreed to sell it to help regenerate the town centre and expects development to begin in the next 18 months.
Members of the Midsomer Norton and Radstock Chamber of Commerce have identified 100 new parking spaces where staff from their businesses will park to free up room for shoppers.
Jon Plenty, from Edwards Opticians, said: "We're appealing to our loyal customers to still support the town and come in as usual on the basis that there will still be plenty of parking. The local business community is really pulling together to meet the challenge. We have put in a huge amount of work developing what feels like a military operation - identifying new parking places, issuing permits to staff, arranging marshals with radios, leaflet drops and press coverage this week so that everyone is aware."
Mr Plenty said the work being carried out was part of a greater vision to regenerate the wider town centre.
He added: "Ultimately, the work being done in South Road represents a further step in plans to breathe new life into Midsomer Norton town centre."
Councillor David Bellotti (Lib Dem, Lyncombe), B&NES cabinet member for community resources, said the local authority had managed to cut the closure time from three weeks. He added: "The feedback B&NES has received about this proposal has been extremely positive from the public, business community, and town council. There is a real opportunity to connect the High Street and South Road more strongly, while encouraging more people into town to do their weekly food shop."
The work will take place between 8am and 5pm and low level noise is to be expected.
Subject to planning permission being granted, the development of the new store could begin in autumn 2014 with the store open by 2016.
Part of the planning agreement would see the operator creating more parking spaces than it needed, to compensate for the lost civic parking.
