Meijer Looking at Urban Neighborhoods

[KCLBADave 194]

Meijer's new Small Store Format

At 100,000 sq feet it's half the size of a regular Meijer and takes up 10 acres instead of 20. The article says there is interest in putting stores in Indianapolis; Cincinnati; Dayton, Ohio; Detroit — even Grand Rapids. I can see it in a big City where Meijer does not have a presence in the suburban ring. However, I would doubt it would happen in Grand Rapids with the number of Meijer stores ringing the City: Byron Center, 28th/K-zoo, Cascade, Knapp, and Alpine.

[Veloise 46]

The times I've been in the right-sized 28th/Kzoo branch, I've been impressed. Fred's folks have eliminated several spacious departments and retained the essentials. It doesn't feel like anything's missing (unless the quest is for something in the weekly non-foods ad, where there's a disclaimer).

For the cave-dwellers: this is during construction of the new & improved store on the same parcel.

One bit missing from the article: with more stores in a far-flung geographic area, restocking is easier. Not an issue here, but as Sandy the Pony creeps towards Wisconsin and Cleveland, they'll start seeing more economies of scale.

Now, about Michigan & Fuller...

[Ted 41]

get it down to 50ksf and we've got something to talk about...

[metrogrkid 34]

It is my hope that Meijer will follow up its Medical District faith in downtown (i.e.-Meijer Heart Center & Lemmen-Holton Cancer Pavilion) with further vision and faith in downtown GR's progress by using a 50,000-75,000 square foot urban Meijer (like the urban Dominick's of Chicago) to revive/enhance/replace the 14-screen cinema & hotel/retail/apartment development combo that was proposed over the last several years for South Downtown's Dash 4 & Dash 5 lots. With a truly useful hub of retail and services on that site catering to 1] the Avenue of the Arts District/Commerce Avenue housing options and regular 10-minute walk radius patrons of VanAndel Arena area and 2] WMU/Cooley Law School/Aveda Institute students/staff(in addition to retail and entertainment that cannot be found in West/Central Michigan), the stage could be set for both making the S-Curve/Central Station/VanAndel Arena area a VERY dense and preferred urban neighborhood. Additionally such an occurance could legitimize 1] accelerated development on the Weston/Grandville/Market Triangle Lot, 2] accelerated development on the Amway Market/Fulton Lot and 3] create strong agruments for accelerating and expanding plans for downtown's Streetrail system.