A temporary Piggly Wiggly sign is no longer hanging above the door on a storefront at a renovated Triad shopping center.
Developer Shahzad Akbar told Triad Business Journal Tuesday that the Piggly Wiggly grocery store is still coming to Freeman Mill Square in Greensboro. But the target date for the opening has been pushed back from April to November.
TBJ broke the story about the Piggly Wiggly in January. The 14,000-square-foot store is planned as the centerpiece of the 51,960-square-foot shopping center, which is at the corner of Freeman Mill Road and Florida Street, just a few minutes south of downtown.
Akbar said at least two new tenants are scheduled to open before Piggly Wiggly, an iconic brand which has no stores open in the Triad. A pizza buffet restaurant, that he compared to Cicis Pizza is preparing to open in the next few weeks, with Cricket Wireless expected to open in about two months.
Freeman Mill Square is just across Florida Street from the Smith Homes neighborhood. As Publix, Lidl and Spouts Farmers Market expand in other areas of the Triad, the area around Freeman Mill Square doesn't have a major grocery store.
In January, Akbar told TBJ that the grocery store will be a "multimillion-dollar" investment for S&S Capital LLC, which includes Akbar and Shehzad Quamar, also owners of the Wyndham Garden Hotel on Swing Road in Greensboro.
S&S Capital bought Freeman Mill Square for $1.5 million Nov. 8.
Founded in 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee, and often associated with the Southeast, Piggly Wiggly LLC, has its corporate headquarters in Keene, New Hampshire, and is an affiliate of privately held C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc.
Piggly Wiggly's franchise business model is similar to that of Sav-A-Lot, which has stores in Eden, Greensboro, High Point, Lexington, Mount Airy and North Wilkesboro. But it's much different from the business models of Publix, Food Lion, Harris Teeter (NYSE: KR), Walmart (NYSE: WMT) Aldi and Trader Joe's, and regional brands such as Lowes Foods, Bi-Lo and Ingles, in which the company owns the individual stores.