Merchants in the Hickory Ridge Village Center are hoping a major renovation to the village's Giant grocery store will attract more customers to their shops.

Although several merchants say they are not struggling financially, they believe the village center could use a boost after three businesses -- Blockbuster video, a Dollar Store and a chiropractor's office -- have closed in the past year.

"All I want is more traffic in here and the stores filling up (with customers)," said Christa Pence, who is the manager at the Rave Reviews Consignment Shop.

On June 15, Giant began its 12-week renovation of the roughly 58,000-square-foot Hickory Ridge store that will add new flooring, ceilings, decor, prepared food tables and an expanded selection of organic and natural foods.

The renovation to the Hickory Ridge Giant follows a company trend throughout Howard County. In May, Giant Inc. completed renovations to the Clarksville store in River Hill Village, the Owen Brown Giant and a Giant in Elkridge.

The company plans to finish the Hickory Ridge Giant project in August, said Jamie Miller, a Giant spokesman. In addition to the store's new fresher look, there will be some subtle changes, Miller said.

"Certain product selections will be customized to Hickory Ridge," he said without getting into specifics.

Miller did say, however, that the Hickory Ridge store will not add a Starbucks Coffee counter like some of the other renovated Giants.

Some village merchants, such as Eric Lee, who owns Renew Shoe Repair, believe the renovation will improve the Giant and attract more customers.

But he acknowledged that a recent decline in customer traffic might be more a symptom of a slowed economy instead of what retail outlets the village centers can provide shoppers, Lee said.

"It's been slow everywhere," Lee said.

Eric Stein, owner of Decanter Fine Wines in Hickory Ridge, is hopeful the improved Giant will remain competitive in a growing supermarket community.

"We're all hopeful that a remodeled Giant will bring more shoppers to the village center," he said. "Whenever you have stores that are closed, customer traffic will go down."

However, Harris Teeter, a supermarket chain providing a broad selection of prepared foods, opened a store in Kings Contrivance in May.

Wegmans Food Markets, Inc., also plans to open a 160,000-square-foot store in Columbia. However, the plan for that store is held up by an appeal from a local union group.

Viability of centers at issue

Concern about the future of the village centers is a recurring theme throughout Columbia as several well-known stores in the centers have closed in recent months.

In March, officials at Kimco, which owns six of the 10 Columbia village centers, announced they are working on a plan to make the Wilde Lake Village Center more vibrant by building 500 upscale apartment units.

In the meantime, Pence claims that she has had to advertise more to find new customers. The consignment shop is a nonprofit retail store that accepts clothes people trade in and resells them. The shop gives the donor half of the revenue from the sale and gives the other half to Howard County General Hospital.

"It's getting harder and harder, but we're trying," Pence said.

Officials of Kimco Realty Corp., the village center's landlord, did not return calls seeking comment.

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