Wegman's coming to the Pittsburgh area

[buckguy]

Cranberry Twp is a growing area that has a lot of big box retail where the Turnpike crosses I-79.

https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news ... port-says/

Pittsburgh could work for them--Giant Eagle is a has a lock but is basically just a dull Kroger-ish chain. There's no upscale chain like Heinen's and Whole Foods hasn't built a big footprint.

[mjhale]

Cranberry Twp is a growing area that has a lot of big box retail where the Turnpike crosses I-79.

https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news ... port-says/

Pittsburgh could work for them--Giant Eagle is a has a lock but is basically just a dull Kroger-ish chain. There's no upscale chain like Heinen's and Whole Foods hasn't built a big footprint.

Giant Eagle's Market District format isn't much to write home about either. It is bigger with a lot more prepared foods and larger deli and bakery. But in the end it is still a Giant Eagle with a fancy facade on it. Wegmans could give the Pittsburgh market a bit of a rumble even with a small amount of locations.

[storewanderer]

Cranberry Twp is a growing area that has a lot of big box retail where the Turnpike crosses I-79.

https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news ... port-says/

Pittsburgh could work for them--Giant Eagle is a has a lock but is basically just a dull Kroger-ish chain. There's no upscale chain like Heinen's and Whole Foods hasn't built a big footprint.

Giant Eagle's Market District format isn't much to write home about either. It is bigger with a lot more prepared foods and larger deli and bakery. But in the end it is still a Giant Eagle with a fancy facade on it. Wegmans could give the Pittsburgh market a bit of a rumble even with a small amount of locations.

Compared to a regular Giant Eagle, Market District is an excellent store in my opinion... but I can't think of many scenarios I'd shop Market District. Maybe if the only other choice was a regular Giant Eagle?

But a regular Giant Eagle is about at the bottom for me- they are so awful- awful pricing, promotions that don't work for me, uninteresting perimeters... clean and neat at least...

[buckguy]

Cranberry Twp is a growing area that has a lot of big box retail where the Turnpike crosses I-79.

https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news ... port-says/

Pittsburgh could work for them--Giant Eagle is a has a lock but is basically just a dull Kroger-ish chain. There's no upscale chain like Heinen's and Whole Foods hasn't built a big footprint.

Giant Eagle's Market District format isn't much to write home about either. It is bigger with a lot more prepared foods and larger deli and bakery. But in the end it is still a Giant Eagle with a fancy facade on it. Wegmans could give the Pittsburgh market a bit of a rumble even with a small amount of locations.

Compared to a regular Giant Eagle, Market District is an excellent store in my opinion... but I can't think of many scenarios I'd shop Market District. Maybe if the only other choice was a regular Giant Eagle?

But a regular Giant Eagle is about at the bottom for me- they are so awful- awful pricing, promotions that don't work for me, uninteresting perimeters... clean and neat at least...

Giant Eagle Market District stores are a joke---much of what they sell seems to be more of the same mediocre stuff that every Giant Eagle has. Wegman's doesn't compete directly with these stores in the few places where they overlap with Giant Eagle like Erie, but I'm sure they can figure out how to address them as a competitor.

The challenge for Wegman's will be geography. The Pittsburgh area is extremely hilly which limits where you can build new, large format stores; the Bay area is probably the only metro that resembles the topography. Unlike a lot of places its size, there isn't just one or two corridors where most well-off people live and lower income areas are similarly scattered, although the Monongahela Valley suburbs (where steel making used to be concentrated) have a lot of them. Cranberry Township is plenty hilly, but does have some suitable locations---that area already has most large format retailers including a Costco.

[BatteryMill]

The challenge for Wegman's will be geography. The Pittsburgh area is extremely hilly which limits where you can build new, large format stores; the Bay area is probably the only metro that resembles the topography. Unlike a lot of places its size, there isn't just one or two corridors where most well-off people live and lower income areas are similarly scattered, although the Monongahela Valley suburbs (where steel making used to be concentrated) have a lot of them. Cranberry Township is plenty hilly, but does have some suitable locations---that area already has most large format retailers including a Costco.

Since Wegmans has constructed stores with parking garages towering above the shops themselves, and has now taken to urban locations, they should find a way in the tight landscapes of Pittsburgh.

On a side note, I hope this is where Wegmans returns to building pharmacies...