Dive Brief:
- Lucky’s Market will open six Florida-based stores in the next 18 months, according to Supermarket News.
- Ben Friedland, Lucky’s Market’s VP of marketing, told Supermarket News that the store wanted to open stores that could help revitalize areas of the community that need a kick-start.
- The company’s expansion plans include six new Florida locations in Sarasota, Panama City and Oakland Park this summer, followed by a store in Port St. Lucie in late 2017, Bonita Springs in early 2018 and St. Petersburg in the summer of 2018.
Dive Insight:
With more competition in the marketplace from online grocery and niche neighborhood grocers, traditional grocery stores sometimes have a hard time keeping up with rising real estate prices.
And for grocery companies looking to expand, locking down real estate bargains is almost impossible these day because the retail market is stronger than it’s ever been. The latest CBRE retail report noted that prices across the nation are increasing year over year, and grocers must compete with a host of retail segments competing for space.
Many analysts recommend that instead of finding new real estate for new stores, grocery companies acquire existing grocery space and shape it to fit their own store’s model.
There are opportunities for new grocery stores in neighborhoods that are not showing economic strength, but taking space in an area like that could be a big gamble. However, by concentrating on areas of the country where millennials are gravitating and live/work/play environments are popping up, a grocer could get ahead of an up-and-coming neighborhood.