The Safeway supermarket in the Normandy Shopping Center on Route 40 in Ellicott City is closing this weekend, a move prompted by the grocery chain’s decision to focus on its larger stores in the area.

The 31,252-square-foot store, which has been there since 1961, will close at 6 p.m. Saturday, said Craig Muckle, a Safeway spokesman.
 
A property manager for Normandy Venture Limited Partnership, which owns the strip mall in which the Safeway is located, did not return a call for comment on what might replace the supermarket.

Daniel Burdette, a nearby resident and member of the nearby Normandy Heights Improvement Association, bemoaned the impending loss.

“The convenience of jumping in the car and driving down the road (to) pick up some eggs and milk and whatever you need is now gone,” he said.

Just last year, he noted, the Miller Ford dealership across Route 40 from the Safeway closed, and the latest shutdown means one less retailer in the area.

“It’s going to be a loss of a community store that served the local market, that served the local community,” he said. “So we’ll miss it.”

Burdette blamed the store’s closing in part on the economy. “We’re in the middle of a recession and it’s the worst I’ve seen and I’m 60 years old. People aren’t spending money,” he said. “I think it’s in transition right now and small markets don’t make it.”

Muckle said Safeway management had decided to focus on larger stores. “These small stores aren’t serving the community,” Muckle said. Safeway had wanted to enlarge the Normandy Shopping Center location, he said, but was prevented by the center’s owners from doing so.
 
When the store’s lease expired, management decided not to renew it, Muckle said.

He said Safeway wants to focus on its larger, existing stores in the Columbia Village of Long Reach and further west on Route 40, near Enchanted Forest. Both of those stores are about 55,000 square feet.
 
Rather than siphoning business away from those larger stores, he said, Safeway decided to close the Normandy store.

Smaller stores disappearing
 
Brian Gibbons, chief executive officer and president of Greenberg Gibbons Commercial, the development company that plans to anchor a new shopping center at the Turf Valley development, about five miles west of the closing Safeway, with a 50,000-square-foot Harris Teeter grocery store, said smaller grocery stores are on their way out.

“They can’t offer everything that the consumer wants in a profitable way,” he said. “The consumer will just drive by that store and go to the store where they can get everything.

“What’s happened over the last 15 years is all the small stores have basically gone away. The story isn’t that it’s closing, the story is that they can’t get enough space to build a larger store.”

But larger stores can be controversial. Gibbons’ Harris Teeter plans have been criticized by some Turf Valley residents as potentially bringing in too much traffic and having a negative effect on nearby businesses.
 
Marc Norman, a Turf Valley resident and a leading critic of the proposed Harris Teeter, said county planning for the Harris Teeter has been inadequate, and also blamed inadequate county planning for Route 40 redevelopment for the Safeway closing.
 
“It’s an unpredictable environment,” he said. “Why would anyone do business in an unpredictable environment?”

Others said larger grocery stores simply better serve their needs.
 
Helen Carey, a Turf Valley resident and supporter of the proposed Harris Teeter store, said the Normandy Safeway’s time was up.

“It was small, and dated. It had been there a long time,” she said.

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user comments (3)

user independent says...

More little known news for Ellicott City residents: Foster's Country Store is closing this Saturday. Come by for one last visit at the corner of Route 144 and Tridelphia Rd.

Posted 12:40 PM, 06.23.09

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user citizentaxpayerjane says...

Becoming too big to fail has great advantages, all upside, no downside. Look for this business model to take over at great expense to taxpayers large and small. No elected official or Chamber of Commerce rep is seriously looking out for small business, small taxpayer, small anything. Brace for impact, taxpayers.

Posted 1:01 PM, 06.23.09

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user silencedogood2 says...

The council had no basis for CB58 approval. It's possible they lied during testimony when claiming area businesses supported a 50,000 sq ft grocery in Turf Valley. Then the board of elections invalidated previously valid signatures to bring this decision to the voters by placing it on the ballot. More area businesses to be closed after this decision is implemented by the developer. As I recently read, there is no gov't official or Chamber committee representing smaller businesses fairly and this is quite dangerous for competition as well as bail outs as Jane points out above.

Posted 7:15 AM, 06.25.09

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