Publix 'looking aggressively to grow' in Richmond market as it plans first store in Henrico
Posted: Tuesday, February 2, 2016 4:15 pm
Florida-based high-end supermarket chain Publix is coming to the Richmond region in two years.
The Lakeland, Fla.-based Publix Super Markets Inc. said Tuesday that it has signed a lease for a 49,000-square-foot store at the northeast corner of Nuckols and Twin Hickory roads in western Henrico County. It would be in a planned 90,000-square-foot shopping center to be known as Nuckols Place.
The store would open sometime in 2018, but the company doesn’t have an exact date.
And Publix is not stopping at just the one area store.
“We are looking aggressively to grow in the Richmond area and elsewhere in Virginia. We are open to all opportunities and aggressively looking to identify additional locations,” said Maria Brous, the chain’s director of media and community relations.
Publix, known for its top-notch customer service, sub sandwiches and birthday cakes, also signed a lease for a 54,000-square-foot store in Bristol. That store would open in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Virginia will mark the company’s seventh state of operation. Publix announced its entry into North Carolina in September 2012, opened its first location there in February 2014 and now has 11 stores in the Tar Heel State.
Publix enters the Richmond market as the competition among grocery retailers is intensifying as new players enter the market and current players are expanding.
“The makeup of the Richmond market is more challenging than most, and it will get only more competitive,” said Jeffrey W. Metzger, publisher of Food World, a Maryland-based industry publication. “The weak will get weaker.”
High-end grocer Wegmans will open two stores in the area this year. Super frugal Aldi has opened five locations in the past year and has more on the way. German-based Lidl continues its preparations for entry into the market, as it has bought five area sites. Whole Foods is adding a second store.
This is on top of significant investments being made by Martin’s Food Markets, Kroger and Walmart to expand and enhance their presence and offerings, including Walmart opening four of its Neighborhood Market grocery-only stores.
“It will be a challenge at first for Publix,” Metzger said, because the chain initially will have one area store. But “they are an extremely well-run company and are deep-pocketed.”
It took Publix, the nation’s largest employee-owned grocery chain, two decades to become the market leader in Atlanta by starting with one store, he said. The chain is making similar inroads in the Charlotte, N.C., market, which Harris Teeter, now owned by Kroger, calls home.
Locating in a hotly competitive grocery market like Richmond isn’t a concern for Publix, said Brous.
“We always welcome competition. Competition makes us all better,” she said. “It is a natural progression for us to be in that state. And customers have long asked us to come to Virginia. We go to market regardless of who is in the market. We believe our service and quality products differentiate us.”
The increasing competition in the Richmond region in recent years has eroded the market share for Martin’s, which still holds the No. 1 spot, and for Food Lion, which slipped from second place to third, according to the latest annual grocery market survey by Food World for the 12 months that ended March 31.
Gaining ground during the survey year were Walmart and Kroger.
PHOTOS: Publix grocery stores
Florida-based high-end supermarket chain Publix is coming to the Richmond region in two years.
Robert S. Ukrop, the former longtime president and chief executive officer of Ukrop’s Super Markets chain before his family sold it in 2010, said he has known the Publix chain for about 40 years. At one time, he said, Ukrop’s sold some pies and other bakery items to Publix.
The Florida-based retailer has a well-deserved reputation, he said.
“They were the people we followed. They were our heroes, and we aspired to be like them. They are among the industry best,” said Ukrop, now president and CEO of Ukrop’s Homestyle Foods, which makes bakery items and prepared foods for Martin’s and other stores.
“They are consistent on what they deliver and what they do for their customers,” Ukrop said. “Their stores are impeccable.”
Publix, which has been on Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 18 consecutive years, will force other grocers to improve their service and offerings, Ukrop said.
“The winner in all of this will be the customer,” Ukrop said. “Everyone will have to up their game.”
Publix has looked at opening stores in Virginia for years, Brous said.
“Residents of Virginia who know us from vacationing in the Southeast have long asked us to come to Virginia,” she said.
At 49,000 square feet, the local Publix store is small compared with the two new Wegmans locations (115,000 square feet for the one in the Stonehenge Village Shopping Center in Chesterfield County and 120,000 square feet for its West Broad Marketplace location in Henrico) and to the latest Kroger Marketplace stores in the region, which typically are larger than 100,000 square feet. On the other hand, a typical Walmart Neighborhood Market is between 38,000 and 42,000 square feet.
Publix has stores ranging from 20,000 square feet to 65,000 square feet, Brous said.
The site for the first area Publix store is where Ukrop’s had planned to build a grocery store. Ukrop’s had completed site work for the store — originally planned to be 76,000 square feet — before the family-owned chain sold its business to the owners of the Martin’s chain in 2010.
Nuckols Place shopping center sits between Wyndham Forest Drive and Twin Hickory Road, across Nuckols Road from a Food Lion store.
The Peterson Cos., a development company based in Northern Virginia, paid $8.1 million to buy the 15-acre parcel off Nuckols Road in June.
Construction of the new center is scheduled to begin this summer, with completion of the first phase slated to open in 2017 ahead of the Publix opening in 2018, said Angela Sweeney, Peterson’s vice president of corporate marketing and communications.
The land is already zoned to permit a shopping center.
Kevin South, vice president of retail services at commercial real estate brokerage CBRE | Richmond, assisted Publix with market analysis, site selection and leasing for the Henrico location.
“They are aggressively growing in North Carolina, and they see Virginia as the next step for them,” South said. “They will be aggressive here for sure.”
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