A new grocery store anchor for Wilde Lake is not viable, so re- inventing the space as a mixed-used development with residences, offices and retail is the best way to make the village center successful for another 30 years, its landlord said this week.
"How do we create a place that's special and vibrant and different from what we already have?" asked Geoffrey Glazer, vice president of acquisitions and development for the mid-Atlantic region of Kimco Realty Corp. "We're trying to make this a very festive place [where] people want to gather."
Kimco, which owns the village center, envisions a project that will cost at least $40 million, featuring high-end rental housing that appeals to empty-nesters and young professionals, in multistory buildings with 125 units each, and underground parking.
The earliest the project could get under way would be late next year or early in 2010, Glazer told a meeting of the Wilde Lake Village Board on Monday night.
The revitalized center calls for about 50,000 square feet of retail and office space, compared with 95,000 square feet now, Glazer said. And notably missing would be the anchor grocery store that merchants, residents and a position paper drafted by the village board have identified as crucial to the center's success.
"No large, national grocery retailer is interested," Glazer said. "I don't want to beat around the bush here."
Grocery stores, which average 50,000 square feet these days, are far larger than the footprint of the former Giant store that left in September 2006, he said. When stores are that large, there can be only so many before the market is saturated, he said.
Produce Galore, a specialty grocery store and deli, closed Friday after 33 years in the village center.
Three grocery stores have opened or are planned in east Columbia. A Trader Joe's recently opened at Gateway Overlook; Harris Teeter is scheduled to open in Kings Contrivance in May; and a two-story Wegmans is planned at Snowden River Parkway and McGaw Road.
"I want a grocery store," said Shep Jeffreys of Wilde Lake. "I believe we need a grocery store. Do you believe that without an anchor store there will be enough traffic to support those pretty little awning stores that you have there?"
Glazer said that Kimco villages in Philadelphia have tenants that very successfully feed off one another without huge anchor stores.
