Saturday, July 18, 2009
Food Lion still on track in Daleville
The grocery will anchor the new Orchard Marketplace.
The latest from The Ticker blog
A grocer with a new look and a national pharmacy chain are two of the businesses slated for a new retail center in Daleville that still looks like a construction zone.
By mid- to late August, a 35,000-square-foot Food Lion is expected to open its doors at the Orchard Marketplace, just off the busy U.S. 220 corridor in Botetourt County.
Dressed with a dark brick exterior, the store will show off the North Carolina-based grocer's new prototype design. The food areas, from produce to meat and deli, will be sectioned into what the chain calls "neighborhoods."
The Food Lion will anchor the Orchard Marketplace, a 33-acre retail center that, so far, will have a CVS Pharmacy, medical facilities and other small shops, according to a master plan for the development.
The center sits across from the Daleville Town Center, which also is under construction and eventually will house residential and commercial space.
The newly designed Daleville Food Lion, one of 50 so far for the grocer, isn't the same as Bloom, an upscale store under Food Lion's banner with 64 locations. A spokeswoman for the grocer, Christy Phillips-Brown, said the new design in Daleville is "more updated" than a traditional Food Lion, but it's not necessarily considered upscale.
"Customers enter a foyer and move through the store as if they are visiting a series of shops," Jennifer Speck, another Food Lion spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.
Lately, Food Lion has been identifying specific clusters of shoppers and catering store offerings to these groups. For example, the retailer is stocking the shelves of certain stores in three North Carolina markets with more Hispanic items.
Customer feedback and company research were among factors driving the new Food Lion prototype, Speck said. She would not provide other details, citing reasons of competition.
A CVS Pharmacy is planned for a land parcel near the retail center's entrance, fronting U.S. 220, according to a master plan for the site. An owner of that particular parcel, Allen Layman, who manages Layman Family Properties, said Friday that a developer has a contract to buy the land and build the CVS.
A spokesman for CVS' corporate office did not return a call for comment about a new store.
A building that's under construction adjacent to Food Lion and could house nine or 10 retail shops isn't yet fully leased, said Millie Moore of Retail Real Estate, who is a leasing broker for the center.
Two retail and service businesses are negotiating or have signed leases to plant stores inside the 12,000-square-foot structure. Read Butler of East Hill Development in Richmond, the developer of the center, would not disclose the names of these businesses.
He said his company does not plan to build additional commercial structures at the site for now, because most retailers are cautious about opening new locations because of the national recession.
"The demand for space has dropped off everywhere," Butler said. "We'll build additional space as we have users."
He would not disclose the cost of the development.
Retail isn't the only feature at Orchard Marketplace, which is positioned to draw traffic from people driving home from work via U.S. 220, Butler said. The 2011 population projection is 18,605 people within a five-mile radius of this center. In 2006, the median household income within a three-mile radius was $60,723, according to marketing materials for the center.
Some sites near the Food Lion store eventually will house a Carilion Clinic medical facility and a dental office. Both groups said they plan to purchase the land from Layman Family Properties, which owns those parcels.
Representatives for Carilion and the dental practice, Coots Ward Cross Family Dentistry, said they are waiting for site work to be completed there.
Four doctors and two nurse practitioners from an existing Carilion practice at 46 Wesley Road in Daleville will relocate to Orchard Marketplace. The practice's new building will be double its current size of 12,000 square feet. Additional doctors will join the office, said Eric Earnhart, a Carilion spokesman.
Near the Carilion Clinic practice, a group of local dentists based in Southwest Roanoke County plans to purchase land to build a new office, with the goal of opening in mid-2010.
Scott Ward, a dentist with Coots Ward Cross on Electric Road, said there will be at least two dentists at the new Daleville office. One dentist will rotate each week from the Roanoke County office. It's an opportunity for the practice to expand its reach to Botetourt County, he said.
"There's a lot of need there," Ward said.
