Aldi to open new grocery store in Ormond Beach

Ormond Beach residents will have another grocery store from which to peruse the shelves at next year: Aldi is coming to town.

Headquartered in Batavia, Illinois, the grocer is one of the retailers planning to open at the Shoppes on Granada.

That $10 million, 34,000-square-foot complex is being built on 5 acres at 1260 W. Granada Boulevard. Beside Aldi, the Shoppes will be adding a TD Bank, an animal hospital, possibly a second office building, and a likely restaurant, retail or office space, SVN Alliance Commercial Real Estate Advisors principal Chris Butera said.

The second phase of the Shoppes is now under construction and stores should begin to open in the spring or summer of 2019, said Butera, who worked on the deal on behalf of real estate developer, The Ferber Company.

Currently, Aldi has three stores in Volusia County, with two in Daytona Beach and one in New Smyrna Beach, Haines City division Vice president Matt Thon wrote in an emailed statement. Also, an Aldi opened in Palm Coast last year.

Thon did not have details on the new store. “We always want to be conveniently located for our shoppers and Ormond Beach is a great location for Aldi," he said.

Ormond Beach Deputy Mayor Troy Kent gave the grocer a ringing endorsement.

“I’m extremely excited that Aldi is coming to town. I feel like their prices cannot be beat and I love their produce and how many of their foods don’t have antibiotics and steroids,” Kent said. “I’ve been hoping for an Aldi for at least 5 years. It can’t get here quick enough for me.”

The first phase of the Shoppes was completed in 2015. The $7 million 31,000 square-foot site first phase is located on 1298 W. Granada Boulevard, and features Chipotle, Panera Bread, Petco, AT&T, Aspen Dental, Pie 5 and Mattress One.

Behind the deal

While the first site was being built, Butera said he began investigating the possibility of a second site. But there was a problem. There wasn’t any available land nearby and the properties in the area weren’t for sale.

If it wasn’t for a little persistence, the deal would’ve never happened.

“It took assembling five properties from five different owners over the course of four years to pull this together,” Butera said.

However, where others might have saw adversity, Butera saw opportunity. He went door to door, asking strangers, to sell him their homes or land.

“It takes time some to get people comfortable with myself as being legitimate business person and not some shyster or scam artist,” Butera said. “It’s an awkward conversation. A lot of times you, get a, ‘No thanks,’ or ‘I don’t want to deal with this right now,’ or ‘I don’t want to sell,’ but eventually when they realized the opportunity they would be missing, they came around.”

All told, the company bought two houses, the backyard of an existing house, an animal hospital and a retention pond in order to compile the 5-acre lot. The acquisitions cost more than $2 million and Butera said owners received well above market value for their properties.

More German grocers coming soon

The Shoppes’ site size left it in the Goldilocks range for Aldi, which is generally smaller than other area grocers are, Butera said.

While traditional grocers have strict demand for nearby household counts, because of its smaller footprint, Aldi can lower those requirements making it more likely to succeed in busy markets, Butera said.

Case in point: both Publix and Walmart are less than mile down the road.

However, Aldi’s low prices often drive shoppers to its stores, Butera said.

It’s also one of the few grocers that is expanding, he said.

“Today, we operate nearly 1,800 stores in 35 states,” Thon wrote. “We plan to increase our store count to 2,500 by the end of 2022. By then, we will help as many as 100 million people save money on groceries every month.”

However, Aldi — founded in Germany in 1961 — isn’t alone in its quest to further its grasp in the United States. Another German grocer, Lidl, opened its first American stores last year.

Butera said it was only a matter of time before Lidl locates stores in Florida.