Giant Food in Manassas has Relocated

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Bradford011
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Giant Food in Manassas has Relocated

Post by Bradford011 »

Just an FYI. My brother and I went to MacKay Books in Manassas this past Wednesday and we were both surprised to see the Giant Food Store on 234 @ Lomond Drive (Westgate Plaza) was gone with the store empty and the facade removed. This came as a shock to me as back in 1988 a list of the Top 10 Highest Grossing Grocery Stores in the Baltimore/Washington DC area listed this store as #10 (and not all that far behind #'s 6 through 9).

Turns out it took over the old Shoppers Food space on Sudley Manor Drive (Bull Run Plaza, which is literally just across 234) back in November, and this move had been announced a year earlier. The Shoppers Food space had been taken over by a Fresh World first, I do not know if they moved or went out of business but I noticed their Facebook page had not been updated since 2017 so I'm guessing the latter...
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Re: Giant Food in Manassas has Relocated

Post by BatteryMill »

Bradford011 wrote: February 4th, 2022, 11:38 am Just an FYI. My brother and I went to MacKay Books in Manassas this past Wednesday and we were both surprised to see the Giant Food Store on 234 @ Lomond Drive (Westgate Plaza) was gone with the store empty and the facade removed. This came as a shock to me as back in 1988 a list of the Top 10 Highest Grossing Grocery Stores in the Baltimore/Washington DC area listed this store as #10 (and not all that far behind #'s 6 through 9).

Turns out it took over the old Shoppers Food space on Sudley Manor Drive (Bull Run Plaza, which is literally just across 234) back in November, and this move had been announced a year earlier. The Shoppers Food space had been taken over by a Fresh World first, I do not know if they moved or went out of business but I noticed their Facebook page had not been updated since 2017 so I'm guessing the latter...
That was quite a change, not a bad store but I don't like how the new facade clashes with the rest of the shopping center. I do wonder what's to come for the Westgate Plaza site.

Some corrections here though. The #10 highest-grossing grocery store across both the Baltimore and Washington metros was another location in Manassas at Centreville/Liberia. That location had closed without replacement back in 2012. The Shoppers acquired by Fresh World was also elsewhere in Manassas on Liberia, which still operates as Fresh World to this day; the Bull Run Plaza SFW went under in early 2020.
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Re: Giant Food in Manassas has Relocated

Post by mjhale »

I took a ride out to the Bull Run Plaza Giant. The store has the same interior as the St. Germain Drive store in Centreville. Bull Run Plaza has two entrances. Left side is deli, prepared foods, bakery, produce, Starbucks and a small seating area. Service Meat and Seafood is in the back of the left side "grand aisle" area. Packaged meat, seafood and lunch meat, bacon, etc is along the back. Dairy and frozen are on the right side. The pharmacy is immediately inside the right entrance doors. Wine and beer are on the first aisle after produce in the back. Usual front end and center grocery aisles.

The store itself is very nice, but there isn't really anything to differentiate it from any other Giant built in the last few years. It seemed somewhat sterile and generic to me. Of the recent builds I think that the new Fairfax Circle store at the Scout development is quite nice. The high ceilings give the store an airy, spacious feel. Also, the bar area and the heavier focus on prepared foods at the University Mall store across from George Mason University give that Giant a unique feeling to it. Giant also did a nice job building a full featured store at University Mall but keeping it compact in size.

I do agree that the exterior of the Bull Run Plaza store is, well, different. It definitely doesn't go with the rest of the center. But at the same time if I was the landlord I wouldn't want to upset a major tenant like Giant. The space is filled with a likely very long term tenant so even with an odd exterior design the landlord doesn't have to worry about a vacancy here.

Lastly, I was surprised when the Centreville Road/Liberia Avenue Giant closed. I had thought that the lack of investment in the store was more that Giant was looking to relocate or expand but was still working out the details. By the early 2010s it seemed like Ahold had shed most of the older, outdated stores it didn't intend to expand, relocate or redevelop. Then again I'm sure the Liberia Avenue Walmart becoming a Supercenter didn't help. Also, the demographics were changing too. Both former Shoppers locations are ethnic grocers and the former Giant became an ethnic grocer as well. What is odd is that Giant still operates a gas station in front of its former store at Centreville and Liberia....
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Re: Giant Food in Manassas has Relocated

Post by BatteryMill »

mjhale wrote: February 6th, 2022, 8:03 pm I took a ride out to the Bull Run Plaza Giant. The store has the same interior as the St. Germain Drive store in Centreville. Bull Run Plaza has two entrances. Left side is deli, prepared foods, bakery, produce, Starbucks and a small seating area. Service Meat and Seafood is in the back of the left side "grand aisle" area. Packaged meat, seafood and lunch meat, bacon, etc is along the back. Dairy and frozen are on the right side. The pharmacy is immediately inside the right entrance doors. Wine and beer are on the first aisle after produce in the back. Usual front end and center grocery aisles.

The store itself is very nice, but there isn't really anything to differentiate it from any other Giant built in the last few years. It seemed somewhat sterile and generic to me. Of the recent builds I think that the new Fairfax Circle store at the Scout development is quite nice. The high ceilings give the store an airy, spacious feel. Also, the bar area and the heavier focus on prepared foods at the University Mall store across from George Mason University give that Giant a unique feeling to it. Giant also did a nice job building a full featured store at University Mall but keeping it compact in size.

I do agree that the exterior of the Bull Run Plaza store is, well, different. It definitely doesn't go with the rest of the center. But at the same time if I was the landlord I wouldn't want to upset a major tenant like Giant. The space is filled with a likely very long term tenant so even with an odd exterior design the landlord doesn't have to worry about a vacancy here.

Lastly, I was surprised when the Centreville Road/Liberia Avenue Giant closed. I had thought that the lack of investment in the store was more that Giant was looking to relocate or expand but was still working out the details. By the early 2010s it seemed like Ahold had shed most of the older, outdated stores it didn't intend to expand, relocate or redevelop. Then again I'm sure the Liberia Avenue Walmart becoming a Supercenter didn't help. Also, the demographics were changing too. Both former Shoppers locations are ethnic grocers and the former Giant became an ethnic grocer as well. What is odd is that Giant still operates a gas station in front of its former store at Centreville and Liberia....
It's not a bad store, although there is some imbalance between the wide-open prepared foods area and the narrower aisles. The layout seems to be much more in the Super Stop & Shop framework that Giant had used for some time. I prefer the package to what came before, but it doesn't have the excitement and experimentation that old-school builds had.

Meanwhile, I theorize that what also did the Manassas Junction store in was poor access as traffic volumes became heavier on both roads. Though it sure was surprising that they bucked the trend of investment - new logo signs and the fuel center going in helped.
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