Aldi to open Concord Pike location

January 19, 2024 71

Aldi has signed a 10 year lease to come to Concord Pike, bringing a 10th location in the First State. | PHOTO COURTESY OF GOOGLE MAPS/NAI/EMORY HILL

TALLEYVILLE — Aldi is continuing its expansion in Delaware, this time with NAI Emory Hill closing a 10-year lease with the German grocer earlier this week for a shuttered Ashley Furniture Homestore off the U.S. Route 202.

The more than 33,200 square-foot Class C building at 4130 Concord Pike was bought by Delaware-based limited liability company LDB Wilmington LLC in 2012, three years after original tenant Circuit City closed operations there. Ashley Furniture leased out the space shortly after the property sold and remained there for years.

Jim O’Hara Jr., the NAI Emory Hill broker who represented LDB Wilmington in the deal, noted that the building was a hot draw on the market on a busy route between Delaware and Pennsylvania — including from buyers.

“We had tremendous interest in the property from both national, regional and local tenants,” O’Hara told the Delaware Business Times. “But the landlord’s primary interest was in leasing the building, so that’s what we focused on.”

Terms of the deal were not made publicly available. Jason Block of MCS represented Aldi in the transaction and Neil Kilian of NAI Emory Hill worked with O’Hara.

Discount supermarket chain Aldi has been expanding globally from its German roots since 1967, but has focused on the United States as early as 1976 with its first store in Iowa. In 2019, the grocery store announced plans to use a $3.4 billion investment to expand to 2,500 stores by the end of 2022, according to the Des Moines Register.

Aldi fell close to that mark with 2,357 stores across 36 states by the end of 2022, with nine in Delaware. Two opened last year in Milford Plaza and Millsboro Peninsula Crossing, both off U.S. Route 113.

The grocery store chain bills itself as a no-frills and low cost alternative to other mainstay shops that have long been established. With a typical Aldi store around 20,000 square feet in size, they also hire fewer employees. Aldi already required customers to bag their own groceries well before the COVID-19 pandemic drove labor shortages to cut the job duties.

With inflation driving the cost of groceries up — with prices for a basket of standard items up more than 40% around January 2023— Aldi has emerged as the top option for customers. Most of its stock is private label which costs less than recognized name brands.