Harris Teeter pitches larger, 24-hour store for Ghent shoppers

NORFOLK

Ghent grocery shoppers have talked for years of the possibility of a bigger Harris Teeter in the neighborhood, and now it looks as though the retailer plans to give them one.

Harris Teeter has submitted applications to the city Planning Department to replace its 36,651-square-foot store at 1300 Colonial Ave. with a two-story supermarket covering about 51,000 square feet and operating 24 hours a day. The preliminary site plans show the store shifting on the property into a sideways L shape, with the bottom leg stretching along DeBree Avenue to Shirley Avenue and the entrance facing south toward the parking lot.

The current store would come down to make way for additional parking, according to the retailer's proposal. Part of the new store would cover the spot where a small shopping strip now stands. The tenants remaining there - a Chinese take-out restaurant, dentist's office, laundromat and dry cleaners - would move, said Lenny Newcomb, the city's zoning services manager.

Harris Teeter, based in Matthews, N.C., has asked the city to approve certain zoning changes, including parking space sizes and landscaping and permits for wine and beer sales and for 24-hour operation. Its current supermarket is open from 6 a.m. to midnight, but all seven of Harris Teeter's other stores in the region - including two in the Outer Banks - are open 24 hours.

The proposed new supermarket includes a second-level mezzanine that would house a large wine section, as well as a pharmacy and greeting-cards area, the site plans show. The main floor would comprise the usual grocery sections, including produce, meats, delicatessen, dairy, frozen foods, prepared meals and a floral department.

Harris Teeter officials didn't return calls or e-mails Thursday.

The retailer is scheduled to present its plans at the next Ghent Neighborhood League meeting Sept. 15, said Mike Spencer, the league's president. He had not seen plans yet for the new store, he said.

"Having a larger store would be something that everybody would like to have," he said. Neighbors do have concerns, he added, about the project's impact on nearby historic properties and traffic patterns on the adjacent streets.

A couple of years ago, Harris Teeter acquired an apartment building at 1400 Colonial Ave., adjacent to the store site, and embarked on plans to expand onto that property, Newcomb said. Neighborhood residents and preservationists cited the historic value of the building, a large brick home with front columns, and worried about an increase in commercial activity on Colonial Avenue.

"So Harris Teeter went to great lengths to design around it," Newcomb said, emphasizing that this project doesn't involve that property.

The retailer made other concessions to residents with the current plan, Newcomb said. It fit its delivery bays within a front corner of the new store's footprint, rather than behind the building, where it otherwise would have put the truck entrance off Shirley Avenue.

"We have no other traffic being brought onto these two streets," Newcomb said, pointing to Shirley and DeBree on Harris Teeter's site plan.

Its proposal also calls for closing the West 14th Street entry from Colonial Avenue.

A grocery store has occupied that spot since the late 1960s or early 1970s, Newcomb said, when the city designated it as the commercial area to serve residents of Ghent Square. Harris Teeter opened its first supermarkets in Hampton Roads in 1996 and took over the Ghent store in April 2000.

Carolyn Shapiro, (757) 446-2270, carolyn.shapiro@pilotonline.com