Aldi usually is taking stores over 20K now when it's a lease of an existing building, especially when it is "in line" and not freestanding as it is usually much harder to get the right shape. I definitely saw something that was obviously a former freestanding Rite Aid with the diamond cut out windows traveling somewhere, unfortunately can't remember where I was as it was long ago. That Aldi could have been expanded to fix the logistics too, it was not immediately obvious as the diamond windows were on the back of one side and entrance was not where it would have been for a Rite Aid. They had fully redone the facade to their usual silver cladding and sign pylon but the few diamond windows blacked out gave it away. It could have been in New Jersey? Or New York? Was East Coast. But not every site could be expanded to fix logistics if needed, for example a newer prototypical freestanding RA near me in Wildomar backs up to a 30+ retaining wall straight up so nowhere to dig out a dock well without removing the entire alley behind it which would remove necessary fire dept. ingress and egress that is already poor on the site due to the hills and grading.storewanderer wrote: ↑April 18th, 2024, 11:43 pm The freestanding west coast RIte Aids are around 18,000 square feet. That should be sufficient size for an Aldi but as ClownLoach points out you have the issues with the loading dock and other issues since those are not legitimate "grocery" buildings.
Aldi continues to lease larger sites in CA.
The 99 sites seem to often be too large for Aldi.
Aldi is probably a pretty good replacement for 99 Only. Also if you have a 35k square foot 99 Only you can take and split off 25k square feet for Aldi and throw 10k square feet to Dollar General/Dollar Tree and basically have the exact same type of program going that 99 Only had...
The logistics are the key. They don't have the ability to handle oddball logistics and they don't run a 24 hour operation to reduce costs and energy use. This is a major difference between Aldi and Trader Joe's who does seem to run 24 hour operations and has many stores with very bad logistics as discussed by @veteran+ although they are actively working on replacing as many of these old stores as they can.
What makes me think they would try to swallow as many 99's as possible is that Aldi don't seem to have any problems taking larger boxes. They're good at carving them up to shape the store to their specific prototype especially if they can get it for a discount. I think one in Cerritos is a giant former Babies R Us for example, they just walled the extra space as if they built a store inside a store box. Remember someone noted on a post about 6 months ago Aldi had leased a massive box that was probably intended to be a BB&B multi concept with a Harmon inside; obviously the entire space was available and they wanted it so they'll subdivide and lease out the rest of the space. I have also seen where they will carve a good block of the extra space out and use it as a training center for a few years for the area. I think they just did this at their new South Temecula store where they walled off to the left and the right inside a former furniture store that is around 30K Sq ft. It used to be more obvious, they would have a storefront and it would have a sign on the door that said Aldi training center. Last time I saw one signed was in Fountain Valley, but they cleared it out and prepared that suite for leasing a few years ago. The same configuration is visible in South Temecula (indicative of a training center) but the doors are completely blacked out to hide it. Probably a good idea as I can imagine lots of job seekers stepping in and interrupting things, customers walking in oblivious and wondering why the store is tiny and empty.
If they build from scratch their exact prototype then they don't need as much space since it's the exact design they want. The exact prototype today is 18,756 Sq ft and that is designed without one inch of extra space. They have information on a website Google found showing it is less (+/- 17K) but it is over ten years old and since then I specifically recall Aldi discussing that they were going larger with the newest generation of stores which would include the California expansion they were beginning.
Source on the exact prototype size is their architect
https://dlz.com/projects/aldi-stores-pr ... are%20feet.