Trader Joe's passing on Greensboro again?

In 2011, we reported that Trader Joe's was interested in Greensboro.  The fact is, they were/are only interested in one site, a currently residential site adjacent to Friendly Shopping Center, which is currently home to both a Whole Foods Market and Harris Teeter.  Today, the low price natural/organic/quirky retailer stated they are "no longer interested" in other sites in Greensboro.  To the dismay of many, this continues the roller coaster that Trader Joe's has put Greensboro through.

Trader Joe's has opened stores in Wilmington, Asheville and nearby Winston-Salem in recent years, so there's no reason that they couldn't open a Greensboro location.  We think this is just a bump in the road to Trader Joe's, and eventually they will come.   More from the Triad Business Journal.  In the meantime, Greensboro residents, keep driving to Winston-Salem and Chapel Hill for your Trader Joe's fix.

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Lowes Foods' new look

A competitive grocery market calls for grocers to be on their toes at all times.  In keeping with the trend, Winston-Salem based Lowes Foods stores is rolling out a contemporary look at some of their locations. This store in Greensboro on New Garden Road is one of the first Lowes Foods stores with the new, modernized look.  Gone are the tall, bulky shelving units on the aisles, replaced with low-rise shelves and wider aisles.  Additionally, new sleek signage is displayed all around the store and throughout the center of the store, directing customers to where they can find newly-relocated items.  At this time, it is unclear how many of their stores will get this look, but our guess is that most of them will.

Greensboro's Whole Foods sets opening date; Winston-Salem to get Trader Joe's

Greensboro's long-awaited Whole Foods Market is set to open soon. Finishing touches are being put on the store, which is in part of the Sears building at Friendly Center. The 34,000 square foot store takes up half of the lower-level footprint of Sears' department store. The store will open on April 12th.

Above: Trader Joe's Winston-Salem store rendering

Above: Trader Joe's Greensboro store rendering

On the other end of the Triad, Winston-Salem is gearing up for a Trader Joe's. The store will locate in approximately 13,000 square feet of the former Borders Bookstore at Thruway Center, and is scheduled to open sometime later this year. This will be Trader Joe's first store in the Triad, and perhaps the most sought-after specialty grocery store in the region too. The news of Trader Joe's comes amid opposition regarding a rezoning at a potential Greensboro location.

Trader Joe's Winston-Salem rendering via Triad Business Journal/Thomas H. Hughes architecture
Trader Joe's Greensboro rendering via Greensboro News & Record/Regency Centers

Li Ming's Global Mart opening in Greensboro

Above: Li Ming's in Durham in the former Circuit City

Li Ming's Global Mart, which already has two locations in the Triangle (one in Durham [photos] and a sister store in Raleigh, respectively), will soon breathe some life into the High Point Road corridor in Greensboro. Scheduled to open in the Fall of 2012, the Asian grocery store will encompass nearly 52,000 square feet in the Greensboro South Shopping Center, next to T.J. Maxx. High Point Road, an ever-evolving corridor has seen a shift to ethnic-oriented businesses in recent years.

Above: the former Lowes Foods on High Point Road

The location that Li Ming's is moving into has gone through many incarnations. The store originally opened in 1969 as a branch of discount store Zayre, later was an Ames (another discount store) briefly. As a grocery store it has been a Buy For Less and a Lowes Foods. It has been empty for a number of years since Lowes Foods vacated, so this is certainly a welcome announcement for that shopping center. The Li Ming's in Durham opened last year in a former Circuit City space across from South Square Shopping Center.

Trader Joe's finally coming to the Triad?

When Greensboro's newspaper, The News & Record, polled readers as to which store they would most like to see come to the Triad area - one retailer had an overwhelming majority, Trader Joe's. Since 2007 the specialty grocer has been on a slow but steady expansion throughout the Carolinas, with stores currently in Cary, Chapel Hill, Charlotte, Raleigh, Greenville (SC), and Charleston (Mount Pleasant). It has long been rumored that Trader Joe's is looking for a location in the Greensboro or Winston-Salem area, although those only amounted to what they were... rumors (including an unfounded but widely circulated rumor about the store taking space at the Target shopping center on Lawndale).
Now, the newspaper is reporting that Trader Joe's is interested in a site near Friendly Center. The Greensboro site is adjacent to The Shops at Friendly Center, which houses Harris Teeter, and right next to that is the Whole Foods Market that is set to open soon. Trader Joe's site would encompass the northwest corner of Friendly Avenue and Hobbs Road, which is currently six residential lots. Previously, The Triad Business Journal reported that Trader Joe's may have been interested in redeveloping the old City Motors site off of Westover Terrace. Despite an abundance of vacant space across town, the developers' hearts look to be set on Friendly.

March 2012 Update: Trader Joe's has signed a lease for a store in Winston-Salem at Thruway Center in part of the former Borders bookstore space, that location will open later this year. Plans for the Greensboro location are still at a standstill.

Transformation continues at Greensboro's Sears and Whole Foods Market

Sears at Friendly Center with new embellishments and a new logo masking the old facade on the Pembroke Avenue side.

Whole Foods' front on the Kathleen Avenue side continues to take shape.

Previously, we showed you pictures of how Greensboro's Sears department store is downsizing their foot print at their building (which they own) and leasing half of the bottom lower level to Whole Foods Market at Friendly Center. The building, which retained a lot of its brutalist 1970s elements for a long time, is still in the process of undergoing a drastic transformation. Whole Foods Market is still scheduled to open sometime in Spring 2012, along with the new Charlotte store as well.

The Sears portion of Friendly Center has been recast as 'Sears Plaza,' sporting the new logo. It should also be noted this Sears store is perhaps one of the first in the country, if not the first, to have the new logo. The entire process of this transformation is quite unique, as you don't see a 1970s department store downsize everyday to accommodate an upmarket grocer. Whole Foods is reaping the benefits of a prime location and Sears' woes.

September:

Up Close

October: Mysterious brick columns start to take shape in front of Sears, and a new second entrance has been carved out as well. We also get a glimpse inside Whole Foods' gutted interior.

November: Work continues to transform Sears in time for the shopping season:
December: The new Sears logo is displayed and awnings continue to go up around Whole Foods.

The Sears Auto Center still displays their old logo.

Rise of the Discounters

Above: Both Bottom Dollar (top) and Just $ave Foods (bottom) have corny taglines throughout their stores reminding patrons of how far their dollar will go.

With names like 'Bottom Dollar,' 'Save-A-Lot,' and 'Just $ave Foods,' discount grocers with limited assortments and no-frills shopping experiences are rapidly expanding. With the popularity of ALDI, other stores have taken off on this concept here in North Carolina:

St. Louis-based Save A Lot (a division of SuperValu) opened a distribution center in Davidson County, and has also committed to opening a store in East Greensboro's food desert. Photos of the north Greensboro location:

Walmart opened some of their first "Express" stores in North Carolina, stores that are approximately the size of a CVS or Walgreens. These express stores work in communities that are too small to support a full scale Walmart. Photos of the Richfield, NC store:

Just $ave Foods is Lowes Foods' discounter, as former some Lowes Foods stores are being converted into this format. Photos from the Graham, NC store (former Winn Dixie)

And Bottom Dollar is Food Lion's discount counterpart. Recently a large expansion was announced for this concept. Photos from the Asheboro Store (formerly Food Lion)

They even sell Hannaford Drinking Water - to differentiate between Food Lion's own brand.

Harris Teeter closing store at Golden Gate Shopping Center in Greensboro

Greensboro's Golden Gate Shopping Center is one unique development. It is one of the few shopping centers in the state (if not the country) to be anchored by two full-service grocery stores. One of those stores, Harris Teeter, announced today that they are closing before the end of the month. That store opened as an A&P in 1960, later becoming a Bestway and eventually a Harris Teeter store in 1988. This is their oldest store that is still in operation in town, and has been for well over 20 years.

Harris Teeter's store prior to its current remodel (Bargerconstruction.com)

Harris Teeter's closure of this location will leave virtually no Harris Teeter on the east side of Greensboro. In the past few years they have shuttered other nearby locations such as their store at Executive Square, which originally began as a Kroger, and their store on Summit Avenue at Bessemer, which is now a Compare Foods Market. The Golden Gate store's square footage, approximately 30,000 square feet, and its inability to expand (typical Harris Teeter stores run on average about 48,000 square feet these days) is cited as a reason for this store's closure.

The other grocery store in the shopping center is a Food Lion that opened as a Kroger in 1960. This store is roughly the same size as the Harris Teeter, just over 30,000 square feet, and it will become the sole grocery anchor of the center.
Golden Gate shopping center is one of the closest shopping centers to downtown, and the two stores have been able to compete because its location straddles a line between a middle class area and a very high income area.

East Greensboro 'Food Desert' may see new life at Bessemer Shopping Center

At the heart of east Greensboro on Phillips Avenue lies a decrepit shopping center, only anchored by a Family Dollar surrounded by two dead anchor stores. One of these stores, a now boarded up Winn-Dixie, closed in 1998 leaving the neighborhood with no grocery store within walking distance. The city of Greensboro recently poured some life into the shopping center, called Bessemer Center, by building a brand new public library branch, and now they hope to sprout some new life on the retail scene as well.

City leaders say that low traffic counts is the reason that the center hasn't seen a new store, but locals cite the blight and crime in the area to be contributing factors. However, in recent years efforts have been made to renovate housing projects and reduce crime in the neighborhood. The Winn-Dixie label scar reminds us of what used to be, but come the end of this year that may change as a new grocery store may fill this space.

What are your thoughts on what might materialize at the center? Could it be a full-line store such as Food Lion or a discounter like Save A Lot, Bottom Dollar or Just Save foods. Leave a comment below.

10/6/2011 Update: Save A Lot will move into this shopping center.

1/12/2012 Update 2: Save A Lot has pulled out of this project... we will follow up.

Sears conversion to Whole Foods begins in Greensboro

Greensboro's Whole Foods Market, which is scheduled to open in the Spring of 2012, has already began to take shape. The store will occupy 34,000 square feet in the Sears building at Friendly Center while Sears is downsizing its footprint from approximately 164,000 square feet to 130,000 square feet. These photos display the Friendly Avenue entrance to Sears, which will become transformed into Whole Foods' main entrance.


The two images below show Sears' Pembroke Road entrance, which will serve as their main entrance. In the picture immediately below, upon entering the doors the wall on the left will be the partition between Sears and Whole Foods Market.