JDH Capital : News
PUBLIX, ALDI AND FOOD LION PLAN METRO STORES
22 Aug 2008
Atlanta Business Chronicle by Lisa R. Schoolcraft Staff Writer
Grocery chains are still hungry for growth in metro Atlanta, despite the slow retail environment.
Publix Super Markets Inc. plans to add nine stores to the market in the next 18 months. Discount grocer Aldi Inc. plans to add up to seven during the same time. And Food Lion LLC, which has three North Georgia stores, is adding three more to the market.
Lakeland, Fla.-based Publix’s plans include its first Georgia store with a fuel center, which will open in Perry, south of Atlanta. If the Perry store does well, Publix will consider a fuel center in Atlanta, said Brenda Reid, Publix community affairs manager for the Atlanta division.
Future stores on the books in the metro market include locations in Dallas, Suwanee, Canton, The Prado in Sandy Springs, Avondale Estates, and Smyrna. That list does not includes possible stores at Ivan Allen Plaza downtown and the Lindbergh area of Buckhead.
Publix ranks third in metro Atlanta with 143 stores and 22.4 percent of the market, according to The Shelby Report, which tracks the grocery industry.
Wal-Mart Supercenters, which is the area’s second-largest grocery with a 26.1 percent market share, has slowed its growth nationally. Even so, it recently opened two stores in metro Atlanta, one in Ellenwood in southeast Atlanta and the other in Alpharetta, said Glen Wilkins, senior manager of public affairs for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT).
Wal-Mart, with 56 Supercenters in the market, expects to open an expanded Supercenter at Cobb Parkway South by the end of the year and a Supercenter in Covington in 2010.
The Kroger Co. expects to open its new Fresh Fare store at Peachtree and Piedmont roads in Buckhead on Oct. 19. Kroger (NYSE: KR) is metro Atlanta’s top grocery chain with 31.9 percent of the market and 131 stores.
Smaller chains are also growing.
Aldi, which entered the market in 2002 and now has 21 stores in the area, will by the end of this year open stores near Buford Highway and Clairmont Road in Atlanta, in Norcross and in Lovejoy.
The German chain plans three more in 2009, said Robert Ochs, director of real estate for Aldi in Georgia. It recently put under contract sites in Snellville, Covington and Milton, he said. Other sites are being considered in McDonough and Town Lake in 2010.
“The grocery market is a stable industry to be in,” Ochs said. “We’ve seen growth this year and we hope to continue that trend. We’re far from reaching our potential with 21 stores.”
Atlanta could very well see more than 50 stores in the market, he said.
Food Lion, which has stores in Carrollton, and the Hall County cities of Oakwood and Gainesville, plans to add a second store in Carrollton and one in Dawsonville in late 2008 and one in Newnan in 2009, said Karen Peterson, Food Lion spokeswoman.
The company also has potential sites in College Park, Dallas, and Fayetteville, according to Charlotte, N.C., developer JDH Capital LLC, which is marketing its retail sites as Food Lion-anchored centers. Food Lion’s new stores in Atlanta will be new 35,000-square-foot prototypes, which include international and specialty items, national and organic products, a wine and beer department, and a full-service deli-bakery department, Peterson said.
