LIDL Looking For Lots of Lots in Local Communities
European grocer Lidl appears to be moving forward with at least three Atlanta area stores. Lidl, pronounced "Leedle," will open new locations in Marietta (Austell), Mableton and Snellville next year, according to planning documents obtained by ToNeTo Atlanta. All three stores were previously approved by their respective jurisdictions.
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| Atlanta area Lidl stores should look like this |
The Marietta (Austell) store, 2651 Powder Springs Road, sits near the corner of Powder Springs Road and the East-West Connector. Across the street from the planned Lidl store, also on Powder Springs Road, a former "Greenhouse" Kroger store is today occupied by a Goodwill, while a former Ingles Market, also on Powder Springs Road, was demolished years ago and today its vast lot is empty.
In Mableton, Lidl plans to build at 4730 Floyd Road, near the northwest corner of Floyd Road and White Boulevard. The grocer was previously successful in having the 7.8 acre residential property rezoned for their commercial use. The Mableton Lidl site is across the street from Floyd Middle School and just north of Mableton Crossing, anchored by Kroger, and Mableton Walk, anchored by Publix.
Both the Marietta (Austell) and Mableton Lidl stores are located in Cobb county and both will be built on largely vacant lots.
Lidl's Snellville store is planned for 3821 Stone Mountain Highway (U.S. 78) in Gwinnett county. The grocery store would replace what was previously "Superior Motors," a pre-owned car dealership. This past May, Kroger closed their store at Mountain View Village shopping center, also on U.S. 78, about a half mile from the Lidl site.
Lidl's real estate verbiage on its website indicates that the grocer's ideal sites are a "minimum 3.5 acres [able to] to accommodate a 36,000 sq. ft. stand-alone store with minimum 150 dedicated car parking spaces."
Planning documents indicate that all three of the aforementioned stores will be about 36,000 square feet.
Lidl's first U.S. stores opened June 15th, and others have opened in small groups in the months since. Thus far, the grocer's lone Georgia store which opened in September, is in Augusta at 1096 Alexander Drive, across from recently rebuilt Kroger.
Of the grocer's 45 stores open in the United States, all are on the east coast, with most in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, with single stores in New Jersey and Delaware.
While documents filed with at least one city in advance of getting their local stores approved indicated that the grocer planned to operate from 6 a.m. until midnight seven days a week, those plans seem to have changed. Hours at the 45 stores the grocer has already opened domestically are 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week.
Lidl has either expressed interest in and or been involved in permitting proceedings in a number of other communities around metro Atlanta.
In northeast Cobb, for instance, a potential third store in the county had been proposed to replace the Park 12 Cobb movie theater at 2925 Gordy Parkway near Shallowford Road in northeast Cobb. With strong neighborhood opposition to the store and the traffic they said would it would create, the proposal was ultimately denied by the commission this past September. A lawsuit by Lidl against Cobb commissioners and the county filed October 18 in Cobb County Superior Court alleges that commissioners’ decision against the company’s site plan was unconstitutional, as the proposed grocery store on the theater site would have been a permitted use on the commercial property and met all zoning criteria. It's not clear what the current status of the suit is, but local sources say they are prepared to fight it again if needed.
Lidl has also been linked to potential stores in Grovetown (near Augusta), Newnan, Chamblee, Rome, Woodstock and east Coweta county, among others. Stores planned for Canton and Gainesville were reportedly abandoned after the grocer's plans were not approved by their respective planning departments.
Two other Lidl stores, planned for City Center Crossing and North River shopping center, both on Roswell Road in Sandy Springs, were also withdrawn from consideration following significant community and city backlash.
On its website, Atlanta-based Riverwood Properties shows a roughly 36,000 square foot Lidl as the anchor for its property Town Center at Celebration Village. The property is located on Peachtree Parkway just south of Mathis Airport Parkway in Forsyth County, in Suwanee.
Another Lidl which local sources indicate is "close to reality" would be located at 3520 Sugarloaf Parkway near its intersection with Five Forks Trickum Road in Lawrenceville. The land on which the store would be built is already appropriately zoned, unlike the Snellville site which had to be rezoned for Lidl. Both sites are in Gwinnett county.
With U.S. headquarters in Arlington, Virginia and plans for a regional headquarters and distribution center in Cartersville, Lidl is setting the stage for what could be a significant presence in metro Atlanta.
Have you been to a U.S. Lidl store? Do you think Lidl will find success in metro Atlanta and in the U.S. as a whole? Where do you do the majority of your grocery shopping?
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