Wegmans (and other modern supermarkets) in malls

[pseudo3d]

Most grocers won't give up the side peripheral space to put in Mall registers, and most malls don't want grocery carts going down the mallway. So I blame the lack of grocers in malls on both sides.

I don't think the malls would have much if any objections to paying tenants that bring in a lot of foot traffic.

Quite a few supermarkets tried going into large malls in the late 1950's and the 1960's but it ultimately didn't work out because the large malls with department stores as anchors are more regional in nature and pull traffic from a wider area but less often. Grocery stores need to pull shoppers in much more frequently and it just wasn't a good match and so they have built mostly in neighborhood shopping centers since.

The 1950s and 1960s were very different in terms of retail mix and what was available at the time, namely being able to get 200k+ square foot department stores (with a full department mix rivaling what a discount department store has today, except for food), with supermarkets no larger than 30k square feet at best (today, 30k square feet is basically considered a minimum for a store to fit all of its departments in and still have a reasonable merchandise mix). With malls struggling today or at least no longer have a huge pool of anchor-sized tenants to draw from, and with supermarkets comparable sizes to department stores these days (at least the "higher end" ones), it's no longer a losing deal.

[veteran+]

Most grocers won't give up the side peripheral space to put in Mall registers, and most malls don't want grocery carts going down the mallway. So I blame the lack of grocers in malls on both sides.

I don't think the malls would have much if any objections to paying tenants that bring in a lot of foot traffic.

Quite a few supermarkets tried going into large malls in the late 1950's and the 1960's but it ultimately didn't work out because the large malls with department stores as anchors are more regional in nature and pull traffic from a wider area but less often. Grocery stores need to pull shoppers in much more frequently and it just wasn't a good match and so they have built mostly in neighborhood shopping centers since.

Well said!!

Food Fair had many stores in malls with different types of entrances. Some of these were very high volume but very difficult to manage for a plethora of reasons. When it was time for major updates or remodels they almost always chose to relocate the store.

If the supermarket is part of a mall but has it's logistics (parking, ingress/egress, docks, etc) it can work providing the location is correct as well.

[J-Man]

Whole Foods built a new store (with a mall entrance) at the Coddingtown Mall in Santa Rosa, CA. Other anchors are Macy's, Target, and JCPenney. http://2c2f06a14a9ade4267e6-fb8aac3b3bf ... s/4765.gif

[pseudo3d]

Whole Foods built a new store (with a mall entrance) at the Coddingtown Mall in Santa Rosa, CA. Other anchors are Macy's, Target, and JCPenney. http://2c2f06a14a9ade4267e6-fb8aac3b3bf ... s/4765.gif

That space used to be a Ralphs until 2005, and while it is a bit odd that they kept something like that all these years, it's not exactly a new innovation on their part (WFM also has a home in the Outlets at Bergen Town Center).

[storewanderer]

The WFM with a mall entrance makes a lot of sense because they put the prepared foods areas over by the mall entrance and there is seating outside that entrance. The Ralphs (former Lucky which was unremodeled) that previously occupied that building did not have a mall entrance, it was a completely separate building.