A smaller-format grocery store is now part of the plan for the redevelopment of the Westmont Shopping Center.
The strip mall, at the busy corner of Columbia Pike and S. Glebe Road, is set to be torn down and replaced with a six-story mixed use building with 250 housing units and 22,500 square feet of retail space. The redevelopment plan was approved by the County Board last fall.
The project’s developer is coming back to the Board this weekend to request modifications that would allow a grocery store to occupy the retail space.
More from a county staff report:
The use permit allows the construction of a six-story structure containing 250 multi-family residential units, approximately 22,500 square feet of retail, and two levels of structured parking. The Applicant is pursuing a grocery store tenant to occupy the ground floor tenant space of the building, and these amendments are necessary to accommodate the grocer’s delivery trucks. The grocery store’s delivery model requires the use of large, 53-foot delivery trucks, which requires the alley’s egress and proposed public access easement area to be widened east of S. Glebe Road and results in an undergrounding of the existing at-grade transformers. The proposed underground utility vault and ventilation grates will encroach into the proposed widened public access easement.
Given the smaller size of the retail space, one could expect a grocery store more along the lines of a Trader Joe’s, as opposed to a full-service supermarket.
Westmont Shopping center redevelopment is pursuing an unnamed grocery store tenant. The retail square footage in this redevelopment is only 22,500 so we're likely look at something Trader Joe's or MOM's sized, not HT/Giant/Safeway. @ARLnowDOTcom https://t.co/Z8LHcH12fL
— Chris Slatt (@alongthepike) November 10, 2020
The new grocery store would be located between the Giant at Penrose Square and the new Harris Teeter at the Centro development (Columbia Pike and S. George Mason Drive).
County staff is recommending the Board approve the requested changes. The staff report does not specify when work on the project is expected to begin.
Hat tip to Chris Slatt