Chichi chains choosing Columbia

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Aug 17, 2007 by Louis Llovio

They're coming. Maybe not as fast as people expected them to, but in the next 18 months, Columbia's already large number of grocery stores will grow by three.

And the three aren't just any old grocery stores. They are three of the hottest upscale brands in the business.

This year, Trader Joe's will open at Gateway Overlook; Harris Teeter has already broken ground and will open its new store in Kings Contrivance in the fall of 2008; and the long-anticipated Wegmans has signed its lease and is waiting for final county approval before it can begin construction on the 160,000-square- foot store at the corner of McGaw Road and Snowden River Parkway expected to open in 2009.

Walk through the Wegmans in Hunt Valley. (VIDEO)

Even though the stores have yet to open, competitors in the already-crowded Howard County market are getting ready.

At Giant Food Stores, all 14 Howard County stores are remodeling or preparing for remodels, said company spokesman Barry F. Scher.

Scher said stores will expand perishable departments, make technological improvements for quicker checkouts and increase the number of ready-to-eat and prepared foods.

Safeway, with 12 Howard County stores, will lower prices and

improve its prepared-food and produce markets, said Greg TenEyck, Safeway's eastern division director.

The chain is also trying to make stores more appealing by upgrading lighting, putting wood floors in the produce departments and increasing organic food offerings, he said.

The company calls this a "lifestyle remodel" that makes for a "much richer, nicer appearing and nicer shopping" experience, he said.

Both Scher and TenEyck admitted they expect to see a slowdown when the new stores open. But by getting an early jump they can retain a good number of customers who will come back after the novelty of the new stores wears off, TenEyck said.

Talking to shoppers at the Giant in the Hickory Ridge Village Shopping Center and the Safeway at the Long Reach Village Center Tuesday, one thing becomes clear: the existing stores better be worried.

Erica Holden shops at the Long Reach Safeway. But it's not the only grocery store she frequents.

Holden, a mother of one, said she makes the nearly 80-mile roundtrip to the Wegmans in Hunt Valley at least once a month because of the "wider selection of foods and fresh fruit."

"I will definitely go at least once a week when it opens," she said. "I'm really excited about it."

Joann Casto, who shops at the Hickory Ridge Giant, said she plans to go to Wegmans for her large-scale shopping.

Casto, shopping with her daughter Emily and son Ehren, said she is familiar with Wegmans because her family lives near one in Pennsylvania.

She is attracted to the store because of the prices, the bread and the fish.

But, like Holden, said she will continue to shop at her neighborhood store for needs that pop up during a normal day.

"It's too far away to go and then it gets so busy," she said.

Casto said the Wegmans near her mother is a meeting place, and shopping there is an event. She said her mother takes Emily to eat tuna fish at the store and that her parents meet at the store for lunch.

Jeff Metzger, publisher of the trade newspaper Food World, and a Howard County resident, said most shoppers will be like Casto and Holden.

"Wegmans is definitely a destination shopping experience," he said.

So much so that he expects the store to draw crowds from as far away as Silver Spring and parts of Washington.

"There is a curiosity factor to Wegmans," he said.

The Rochester, N.Y.-based chain operates 70 stores. More than half are in New York, with the remaining stores spread out through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia and Maryland. The next nearest Wegmans is in Dulles, Va.

The company has stores slated to open in Crofton, Frederick and Landover. Opening dates for those stores have not been determined.

On its Web site, Wegmans fashions itself as a "European open-air market." Each store has a cafe and stocks about 70,000 products.

As for the Columbia store, Jo Natale, director of media relations for the chain, said the company has signed a lease on the property and is waiting for development plan approvals from the Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning.

Metzger said that while Wegmans is a draw because of the sheer spectacle, Harris Teeter will bring more formidable competition to the villages near the store.

The 55,000-square-foot store is under construction in the Kings Contrivance Village Center.

The center, with a mix of restaurants, a cigar store and barber shop, once housed a Safeway. Before Safeway, the location was home to Valu Food. That store closed in mid-1999, several months after the company filed bankruptcy.

Safeway's TenEyck said the company wanted to stay in the location, but its lease was not renewed because of a pending agreement with Harris Teeter.

Harris Teeter has 155 stores in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee and Florida.

The Columbia store will be its first in Maryland.

When the chain opens a store, it hopes to attract customers with its "down-home feel," said Jennifer Panetta, director of communications.