Here’s What’s Behind the Grocery Store Boom

The greater Hyattsville area is having a boom in high-end grocery stores.

Yes! Organic Market moved into the Shoppes at Arts District Hyattsville in 2011. An upscale Safeway opened at University Town Center in 2016. And Whole Foods finally came to Prince George’s County with a new store at Riverdale Park Station earlier this month.

Those joined an existing Giant supermarket on East-West Highway, a Bestway near the West Hyattsville Metro station, a Target grocery at the Mall at Prince George’s, Shoppers and MOM’s Organic Market in College Park, and other smaller groceries throughout the area.

Now, developers of a new project in College Park are also looking for a Trader Joe’s-type store or even a larger traditional grocery.

The grocery-store boom is reflective of a larger national trend. With department stores struggling, developers are increasingly eyeing grocery stores as anchor tenants. Other tenants like being near them because people need to buy groceries at least once a week, increasing the odds they’ll stop by somewhere else on the way.

So far, grocery stores have not been hit as hard by the internet like other retailers. One recent study found that 72 percent of consumers prefer to buy groceries in a store, while just 20 percent prefer to do it online. But that could change, with some predicting millennial shoppers will lead the way.

In the meantime, the biggest risk for grocery stores comes from “grocery channel fragmentation”—buying your coffee beans at Starbucks, your cereal and milk at CVS and your bananas at TargetExpress.

This entry was posted in College Park, Hyattsville, Riverdale Park and tagged , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

2 responses to “Here’s What’s Behind the Grocery Store Boom”

  1. Reality Check says:

    I thought PG County wanted *affordable* options. Whole Foods is not affordable by any stretch of the imagination, at least not for a great deal of PG County residents. The attempted gentrification of PG County is premature by a decade or two, if not more (if not unrealistic altogether).

  2. […] Unlike that store, the high-end Safeway at University Town Center or the Yes! Organic Market at Arts District Hyattsville, Lidl is aiming for more of a discount audience. Its main competitor in the area is rival German chain Aldi, which already has stores in Hyattsville, Takoma Park and Beltsville. […]

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