It is articles i like this that really confuse me.
The Business Journal, May 17 - not just two weeks ago...
Schnucks planned for downtown
St. Louis Business Journal - May 17, 2007by Lisa R. Brown
Schnuck Markets plans to open a grocery store in downtown St. Louis.
The St. Louis-based grocery chain
is finalizing plans to open a 20,000-square-foot store on the ground floor of the Ninth Street garage at 9th and Olive
early next year.
The store will be an urban concept store much smaller than Schnucks' typical stores, which are about 55,000 square feet.
The chain has hired a nationally-based design firm to develop the urban concept store. The development cost for the store is more than $6 million.
Speculation has centered for months on Schnucks' plans to open a downtown store. The newly constructed Ninth Street Garage was co-developed by The DESCO Group, a real estate development firm headed by Mark Schnuck. The DESCO Group is the developer on all of Schnucks' stores.
Schnucks will be competing for shoppers' dollars with City Grocers, a 6,500-square-foot store across the street. Developer Craig Heller announced plans in 2006 to more the double the size of his City Grocers store at 920 Olive and move the expanded store across the street to the ground floor of the Syndicate building at 915 Olive St., which his company, LoftWorks, and Minneapolis-based Sherman Associates are redeveloping into 102 condos and 70 apartments. City Grocers opened in 2004 and is currently the only grocery store open downtown.
The new Schnucks will also face competition when Gilded Age opens a 35,000-square-foot grocery store on property across the street from its Georgian condominium project that is located on the western edge of the Lafayette Square neighborhood, just south of downtown. Gilded Age principal Chris Goodson said the added competition will be good for business. "It will offer a nice complement," Goodson said about the new Schnucks store.
Gilded Age plans to break ground on a new Walgreens across the street from its Georgian condominiums this August. The City Market will open in summer or fall of 2008, Goodson said.
lrbrown@bizjournals.com
AND THEN AGAIN IN THE POST DISPATCH - SAME DAY
Schnucks planning downtown store
By Deborah Peterson
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
05/17/2007
Finishing touches are being put on a plan for a 20,000-square-foot Schnuck’s to go into the first floor of the Desco-DFC Group garage development at 9th between Olive and Locust streets, several sources said Thursday. The Century Building formerly was at the location.
A source close to the project said the store would be more than three times larger than the nearest grocery, City Grocers at 10th and Olive streets. Expected is an upscale urban market, complete with an in-store pharmacy, restaurant, deli and food bars.
It would be more of a boutique size, not comparable to the large suburban Schnucks stores.
A spokeswoman for Schnucks declined to comment on the project. St. Louis officials and a spokesman for DFC also declined comment.
debpeterson@post-dispatch.com
Maybe write to the authors of these articles and ask their sources.
It just seems VERY strange that Schnucks would even have "uttered" anything about the downtown store to the media. BOTH articles also came out together - indicating a "press release" fo some sort from Schnucks in the first place.
