Crystal City’s Amazon Fresh is looking at a summer opening, a company spokesperson confirms.
Back in February, a mystery was solved when it was confirmed that an Amazon Fresh grocery store was moving into the large retail space at 1550 Crystal Drive. Now, the company says that residents likely won’t have to wait too long for Crystal City’s only grocery store to open.
“We haven’t confirmed an exact opening date yet but we can confirm it will open this summer,” a company spokesperson said in an email.
In addition to traditional checkouts, the store will also have what the company calls “Just Walk Out technology,” meaning customers can exit the store without physically going to any check-out.
“Amazon’s Just Walk Out system uses ceiling-mounted cameras and artificial intelligence to track shoppers’ selections as they walk around the store and automatically charges them when they exit,” as described by Grocery Dive.
The new store will also have anti-graffiti window film, according to building permits.
Technically, Crystal City has been grocery-store-less for close to two decades, though there’s a Harris Teeter and Amazon-owned Whole Foods in Pentagon City, as well as another Harris Teeter in the Potomac Yard area of Arlington.
This will be the first Amazon Fresh in Arlington, but another location is planned less than two miles away, in the Potomac Yard shopping center in Alexandria.
The company is quickly expanding its grocery footprint across the D.C. area with three stores having opened just in the last year, including one in Fairfax last month.
There could also be a second Arlington Amazon Fresh, rumors suggest.
The Fillmore Garden Shopping Centers on Columbia Pike is set to be demolished in the coming months to make way for “The Elliott.” That new development will have 50,000 square feet of ground floor retail, a revamped CVS, and a grocery store. There is some suggestion that this grocery store will also be an Amazon Fresh.
So far, though, company officials are remaining mum.
“We don’t comment on our future store roadmap,” said the spokesperson.