For the second time in less than a year, Lidl is closing a metro Atlanta store. Store employees were informed Monday that Lidl in Dunwoody will close as of February 6. The roughly 33,000 square foot store, located at 2480 Mount Vernon Highway, opened August 26, 2020 in place of what had most recently been a Sprouts Farmers Market.
A Hollywood Feed pet store which had subleased space from Sprouts and later Lidl, recently closed, too. O'Brian's Tavern, part of Dunwoody Restaurant Group, closed in the center in 2021. CVS Pharmacy will soon serve as the center's primary anchor.
The closure of the Dunwoody Lidl follows the July 2022 closure of the Lidl in Sandy Springs which had just opened in January 2021.
Despite the closures, the German grocer is committed to competing in metro Atlanta and the US market and has several stores in its pipeline for the greater metro Atlanta area in the coming months and years.
This past August Lidl opened its latest Atlanta area store at 1855 Memorial Drive in Kirkwood. The store has by all accounts opened exceptionally well, and following the imminent Dunwoody closure, leaves the grocer with 17 stores in Georgia.
Lidl is planning to open several new locations in the greater metro Atlanta area in the years to come including those planned for Cumming, Woodstock, Marietta, Ponce de Leon Avenue near Ponce City Market, Lawrenceville Highway near Decatur, and Norcross, among others.
The company in 2022 "went vertical" on their 925,000 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. No doubt delayed by supply chain issues, the project is now on track to open in late 2023 or early 2024, according to a source familiar with the grocer's plans. When fully operational, the distribution center will significantly cut down on the time and costs currently associated with supplying the chain's metro Atlanta stores from facilities outside the state.
Are you surprised to see Lidl close in Dunwoody? Where do you do the majority of your grocery shopping? What would you most like to see open in place of Lidl in Dunwoody?
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