It's official: Trader Joe's is coming to South Hampton Roads.
The popular national grocer, known for its exotic foods and low prices, has signed a lease to take space at Hilltop Plaza in Virginia Beach, said Mike Bottalico, project manager for the site's owner, Centro Properties Group. The owner plans to divide the now-vacant North Carolina Co. furniture store, at Laskin Road near First Colonial Road, into three pieces.
"We are coming to that location," confirmed Alison Mochizuki, a Trader Joe's spokeswoman at its headquarters in Monrovia, Calif.
Trader Joe's will take about 13,000 square feet of the space, she said. A PetSmart pet supply store will occupy about 27,000 square feet, and a 22,000-square-foot area remains available for lease, Bottalico said.
He said he hopes to secure city permits this month to allow contractors to split the interior space and rework the facade of that section, which anchors a plaza that includes an Office Depot and Jo-Ann fabric store. Trader Joe's and PetSmart may open in the first quarter of 2009, Bottalico said.
"I'm going to be there," said Debbie Mollura, a Trader Joe's devotee and Virginia Beach resident who helped launch an e-mail petition late last year in hopes of pushing city and company officials to strike a deal for a local store. At last count, Mollura said Friday, the group had collected about 1,350 individual e-mail addresses.
The retailer opened its first Hampton Roads store in December 2005 at the Jefferson Commons shopping strip in Newport News. At that time, the store's managers said Trader Joe's planned a second location in the region, likely in Virginia Beach.
In the past three years, rumors flew whenever a local shopper heard the tiniest inkling that Joe's might have picked a site. Grocery gurus in South Hampton Roads grew more antsy when the retailer announced a second Peninsula store, in the Settler's Market at New Town development in James City County. That one is scheduled to open this month.
In May, Centro's architects submitted permit applications to the city that included preliminary site plans naming Trader Joe's as a tenant for part of the space.
At the time, neither the retailer's nor the property's representatives confirmed that the deal to locate there was done.
Mollura and many of her fellow petitioners have made regular trips to Newport News for their Joe's fixes. The other day, she ran out of Trader Joe's low-carbohydrate chocolate bars and lamented that she hadn't bought more on her last store visit, which requires more than 80 miles of driving and a tunnel crossing.
After the new store opens, she can shop just about anytime she likes. The round-trip commute from her home to Hilltop Plaza is about three miles, she said. "It's wonderful."
Carolyn Shapiro, (757) 446-2270, carolyn.shapiro@pilotonline.com
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Fresh Market
I hope Trader Joe's doesn't hurt Fresh Market. I wish they had located Trader Joe's closer to Town Center. I will check it out, and shop there maybe once every two or three months, but I will still buy most of my groceries closer to home.
I have started buying most of my pet food at Petsmart because of the prices and variety. I stock up once a month.
$4-buck Chuck, here I come!
Wonderful news for us afficionados of cheap wine.
Excellent news!
I shop for a lot of organic/natural foods and I love how Farm Fresh has catered to much of those needs. There are several items that no store on the southside of Hampton Roads carries and have never been THAT ambitious to go to the Peninsula just for food. Since this location will be relatively close to my residence and DEFINITELY closer than the Peninsula location, I will be a frequent guest.
RE the walmart effect
The big-box retailers are simply giving us what we demand. We've conditioned ourselves to want it cheap and want it now. This will make three petsmarts on the Blvd. People would rather see a new one than drive 4 miles.
You simply can't blame the CEOs of the big-box retail giants for giving us what we have asked them to give us. Like it or not, we did this to ourselves. We have become, as a society, selfish, lazy and cheap. Oh sure, we HATE that another small business will go under, but precious few of us will favor that small business when we can get it cheaper at Wal Mart, etc.
The big box stores will continue to flourish as long as we let them. They are not to blame - we are.
The Walmart Effect
There's a PetSmart just 4 miles down the road! What the hell are they opening up yet ANOTHER PetsSmart for?? To push out another locally-owned businesses?
We already suffer from Wawa gas stations squeezing locally-owned gas stations and Walmarts squeezing various different businesses. Same goes for Home Depot. The only benefit these corporate owned businesses have is lower prices. But you suffer in the long-run with lack of service help, lack of product knowledge amongst the staff, lack of variety choices, low wages paid to staff, and a post-office attitude and level of concern for their customers.
I am looking forward to a Trader Joe's in the area though I still would be shopping at The Fresh Market for some items.
Two questions......
My sister on the west coast likes Trader Joe's and Pet Smart has good prices and variety. Q1: I am worried that the placement of this Pet Smart will severely impact a locally owned pet store around the corner, AllPet? Q2: I am also worried that placing a pet store with animals next to a grocery store will lead to contamination, bugs, etc.?