Exec: High-End Grocery Stores Need More Than Fans to Set Up Locally

When it comes to a high-end grocery chain that sells natural foods, people's desire for one in the Memorial Drive corridor is there, but unfortunately the incomes, as a whole, are not.

At a recent community meeting at St. Timothy United Methodist Church, William Stogner, senior vice president with Selig Enterprises, which owns the Stonemont shopping center on Memorial, spoke about the types of tenants he'd like to bring in -- which, he pointed out, may not match some people's first choice.

Ideal tenants include incubator, mom-and-pop tenants, such as an entrepreneur mom who wants to have a children's store, as well as an Aldi's grocery store.

"I know that doesn't turn you on because you want to see Sprouts or Earth Fare or those kinds of tenants," Stogner said to an audience of at least 60 people during the March Pride Rings in Stone Mountain (PRISM) meeting to discuss economic development along Memorial Drive.

(The closest Earth Fare healthy grocery store is in Athens, Ga. Sprouts Farmers Market stores can be found in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah.)

"Truthfully, we're not going to get them," Stogner said. "We don't have the incomes. The median income is about $39,000. That's the median, that's not average...And that kind income doesn't support that kind of operation."

"It doesn't mean we can't have good retail; we can," he said.

Some Patch readers have shared their frustration that there are not higher-end, natural grocery choices with Stone Mountain or Lithonia addresses.

Dee Williams, commenting last fall about a Walmart Neighborhood Market grocery store coming to Lithonia, wrote:

Why is that Walmart, family dollar, & Cvs drugs only want to expand in our neighborhoods. I'm all for growth & jobs but why can't we get a whole foods instead. Dekalb is a thriving middle class area. We shouldn't have to travel out of our neighborhoods to experience better shops, grocery stores and restaurants.

And in our first "Visions for Vacancies" feature, where we ask readers what they'd like to see in place of a vacant space, Trader Joe's was among the top suggestions for the empty former Super Target on W. Park Place Place Blvd.

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