More than nineteen months after our exclusive report that grocery store Lidl would be anchoring Phase 2 of The Interlock in West Midtown (1090 Northside Drive), the store has now set an opening date! Occupying a 31,000 square foot space on the street level of the new mixed-use development, the new store is slated to open Wednesday, October 22.
At Phase 2 of The Interlock development, Lidl joins several restaurants, including FIVE GUYS, Kura Sushi, Wagyu House, a new-to-market hot pot eatery, Starbucks, and Pinky Promise champagne bar, as well as GoodVets, Salon Lofts, Hotworx, and Eleven Nail Bar. The 240-unit Theory Interlock The Rive Atlanta student housing community is also part of the collective project.
Lidl opened its first Georgia store in late 2017 in Augusta and entered the Atlanta market in 2018. In the years since, the grocer has grown to 18 stores in the state. The company previously closed locations in Dunwoody (February 2023) and Sandy Springs (July 2022) and cancelled several planned and in some cases already built locations around metro Atlanta, including those in Decatur, Norcross, Old Fourth Ward, Downtown, and Woodstock, among others.
A store at 4325 Bethelview Road in Cumming that sat completed but idle for more than a year finally opened last September.
The company is also opening new stores in Yonkers, New York and Woodbridge, Virginia on October 22, but sources close to the grocer indicate that Lidl CEO Joel Rampoldt will be on hand to celebrate the Atlanta opening. Rampoldt, who joined the grocer as its chief executive in August 2023, is a 1993 graduate of Georgia State University, according to his LinkedIn profile.
On October 1, Lidl celebrated the "grand reopening" of its store at Brighten Park in Brookhaven, which originally opened July 8, 2020. The store reportedly received a light remodel and slight reorganization to make the shopping experience easier for the customers and more efficient for the company.
The company in 2022 "went vertical" on its roughly 900,000 square foot, $100 million distribution center in Covington. The project, first announced in 2017, was originally to be constructed in Cartersville, but was switched to Covington in early 2020. After several delays, the facility finally opened this past July.
It's unclear what, if any, stores the company has in its immediate Atlanta area pipeline, but a source close to the grocer tells ToNeTo Atlanta that their strategy has shifted (again) from building and owning their own stores to looking to lease new and existing space moving forward.
Are you pleased to hear that Lidl is coming to Phase 2 of The Interlock? Have you ever been to a Lidl? What is your favorite grocer?
Please share your thoughts below.
4 comments:
The parking situation at the Interlock is a nightmare. I can’t see this doing well there unless it survives on the student business alone.
Publix or bust for me. Having a Lidl or an Aldi as an anchor feels like having a Big Lots as an anchor.
DELIGHTED
Lidl is a mess. They lie so often to developers I'm surprised there are any left willing to do business with them. Never been to one and won't be going.
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