Would a downtown Giant Eagle be good for the North Market?

Earlier this month it was announced that Giant Eagle is exploring the development of a store on a parcel located at the intersection of Vine & Neil (an area I’ve long despised), which would be located very close to the North Market.

I’ve heard that there are studies showing predictions on both sides of the fence… some saying this type of development would hurt the North Market, and others saying it would help. I’ve yet to see any of these reports though.

This is just my own two cents, but I’m going to say that this development will help the North Market if it goes through, for several reasons:

• People shop at the North Market and Giant Eagle for very different reasons. Giant Eagle is more of a standard everyday grocery. The North Market is a specialty shop. Each place has a variety of products without a whole lot of overlap.

• The North Market offers a social experience that a Giant Eagle would not be able to replicate. There are events held at the North Market that bring in thousands of people on some weekends who come for the social experience.

• There’s already a Giant Eagle less than a mile away from the North Market right now. That store will be closed if this new one gets built, but the change in proximity can’t have too much of a large-scale impact on the North Market from it’s existing location within that short of a range.

• The new development is more than just a Giant Eagle. According to the information released thus far, this new development would also include over 200 new apartment units as well as additional office and retail space. More neighbors means more customers for the North Market.

• Having a “real” grocery store “downtown” is going to make downtown more attractive for new residents, and thus help the customer base of the market. I’m using those words in quotes because downtown already has many grocery-buying options, some of which within a very short drive or walk outside of the downtown core. (Eric has some great info on this on CapCitySavvy). Still, a lot of people get hung up on the fact that there’s no standard grocery store within downtown proper. This will be a very big selling point for those types of potential residents.

Many grocery stores manage to exist side-by-side with their direct competitors. If you spend a bit of time in the burbs, you’ll often see a Kroger, Giant Eagle, Meijer, Walmart, and Target all located within a mile of each other. Granted, the population might be a bit smaller within a commutable radius of this proposed downtown location, but again, given that Giant Eagle and the North Market aren’t direct competitors, I’d be willing to believe they can co-exist without much of a problem and possibly with some benefits to boot.