Wegmans Contues B-W Growth With Stores Slated For Alexandria, Germantown, Abingdon 

March 2009

The Baltimore-Washington market has been very good to Wegmans. Acknowledging its success since the grocery chain entered the B-W market in 2004 with the opening of its Sterling, VA store, the Rochester, NY based supermarket recently announced it will open three additional new units in the region over the next four years.

The high volume retailer will build stores in Alexandria, VA, Germantown, MD and Abingdon, MD. The Germantown (Montgomery) and Abingdon (Harford) units will be Wegmans’ first stores in those respective counties. Those three units will add to an already full plate the company has planned for the Baltimore-Washington area. New stores in the region have already been announced for Fredericksburg, VA (scheduled to open June 21, 2009), Leesburg, VA (November 8, 2009) and Landover, MD (2010). The company also previously announced new stores to be constructed in Columbia, MD, Gambrills, MD and Frederick, MD. Those opening dates have not yet been announced.

The Alexandria location is scheduled to be 140,000 square feet in size and will be located in the Kingstowne neighborhood at the corner of Beulah Street and Telegraph Road.

The Germantown store will be will test the county’s ‘big box’ legislation, which prohibits retailers from building new stores that encompass more than 120,000 square feet. That zoning amendment, passed in 2004, would require a special exception from the county’s board of appeals for the project to go forward. The Germantown store will be located on Father Hurley Boulevard in a new mixed-use development in the Seneca Meadows Corporate Center.

The company’s Abingdon store will be located close to Interstate 95 at Emmorton and Woodsdale Roads. That area is targeted for significant residential growth as a result of the federal government’s announced military Base Realignment And Closure (BRAC) plan near Aberdeen Proving Ground.
Currently, Wegmans operates only one store in Maryland, its hugely successful unit in Hunt Valley, MD.

Beginning with the opening of its Princeton, NJ unit in 1999, the 72 store retailer, whose annual sales should surpass $5 billion this year, has concentrated on building large new stores away from its Western New York base. It currently operates seven stores in New Jersey and 12 in Pennsylvania.

In addition to the aforementioned Baltimore-Washington new stores, other new Wegmans stores are slated for Collegeville, PA (October 11, 2009) and Malvern, PA (2010).

Moreover, the family-held retailer recently announced plans to enter Massachusetts for the first time. New mega-units in the Bay State are slated for Westwood, MA (Boston area) and Northborough, MA (Worcester area).
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