Southgate Shopping Center, located at 900 South Main St., is set to undergo significant changes with grocery store Kroger’s closing and the relocation of other stores, according to Town Manager Gerald Spates.
Two other retail locations in the shopping center, department store Roses and fast food chain Dairy Queen, closed recently as well.
A March 19 statement from the company announced that Kroger is set to close in between May 21 and June 4, meaning the store’s 80 employees will lose their jobs.
The company said the Farmville store is not profitable, as the 22,000 square foot store is small in comparison to a typical Kroger’s 90,000 to 120,000 square feet and amenities such as a gas station, pharmacy, deli and bakery.
Spates wrote a letter to Kroger requesting that the company reconsider their decision to close the Farmville store but has not yet received a response.
“The main thing is, with the total retail sales in Farmville, the growth of the university and the traffic count in this area, there’s a lot of people that come in here and shop,” Spates said. “There’s a lot of people that
go to Kroger. I go to Kroger.” However, Spates believes the local location will close, as he said Jim Covington, whose company owns Southgate Shopping Center, previouslydiscussed remodeling the store to meet Kroger’s standards to no avail. Spates added, “Maybe
it will spur some interest in building a new store, somewhere else in town, so you never know.”
According to Covington, Kroger’s lease with The Covington Company does not expire for another year and a half, so his company will continue to receive rent money from Kroger until that point.
“The lease doesn’t have a continuous operating clause, so they had the right to close,” said Covington.
As for the other vacancies within the shopping center, Spates said there will most likely be two to three retailers in the space where Roses was located, including a potential medical office.
“I wouldn’t think the stores would stay vacant very long,” said Spates. “We’ve got a lot of people looking at coming in here.”
Spates said there is a grocery store company looking into perhaps leasing at the shopping center, as well as a fast food chain interested in possibly acquiring the space where Dairy Queen was located.
The overall plans for the shopping center remain unclear.
“CollegePlazawent through the same thing Southgate’s going through right now, and look how much that’s changed,” Spates said, referring to the growth at the shopping center located at 1005 South Main St.
“Basically, we’ve got a blank sheet of paper, and that’s fine with us,” said Covington. “We’ve got proposals out for a bunch [of companies], and we’ll see what we can do.”
Covington added, “It’s a very, very good location; it’s in the town next to Longwood. So we’ve got to come up with a whole new program, and we will.”
What is for certain, said Spates, is that restaurant Country Cookin’, a separate building still within the shopping center, is not renewing its lease and plans to relocate to another shopping center.
Drug store chain CVS, whichispartofthe shopping center’s strip, is set to move to the current location building of County Cookin' by 2014, said Spates.
There are plans to demolish the current building and construct a new one.
Covington said CVS is a “very successful store” that has “been wanting for some time to get a free standing building on site.”
Spates hopes there is a positive future for Southgate Shopping Center and Farmville businesses in general.
Spates said, “I think the economy has been rough on new start-up companies, and hopefully the economy is gonna turn around and make it a lot easier.”
