Aldi eyeing a move into Norfolk’s Ghent area

Source: The Virginian Pilot; December 12, 2018

Another grocery store may be headed to town.

Aldi is looking to move into the former Farm Fresh space at 730 W. 21st St. — a space that Harris Teeter had held until recently. The grocery chain on Friday submitted a conditional-use permit application to the city’s planning commission.

The vacant space is 35,132 square feet, but Aldi is proposing to use only 23,087 square feet of it, leaving room for a future, adjacent tenant to use the rest of the space.

Calls and emails to the landlord representative George Harvin of The Rosemyr Corporation in North Carolina were not immediately answered. Rosemyr owns The Center Shops in Norfolk. Aldi declined to provide more information, including when the store would open.

It may benefit from the fact that the space is already a shell after Farm Fresh moved out and Harris Teeter removed and auctioned off the store’s interior fixtures in September.

Since Harris Teeter already has a store nearby on Colonial Avenue, there was speculation that it would not open a second store in the 21st St. space.

Harvin previously told the Pilot in October that the landlord asked Harris Teeter multiple times to re-open the store and sent a letter terminating the rental agreement after the interior fixtures were removed. He said Harris Teeter had indicated it wouldn’t be able to open for another year and the lease had only two years left.

According to the application, the new store would be open daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.