If you were part of a November exit study at City Market, you may recall staff members asking where you live. You might have wondered if the co-op was planning to follow you home. The answer is yes, sort of. General manager Clem Nilan has announced that the co-op board plans to open a second neighborhood location in the greater Burlington area.

G2G Research Group, a California-based consulting company that specializes in market research for co-ops, identified the need for a second store. It mentioned City Market’s “very high sales per square foot performance level” and parking issues as indicators that shoppers might have a better experience if they weren’t all packed into one location. The good news, says Nilan, is that the study confirmed Burlington’s ability to seamlessly absorb another store. Two less crowded stores with easier parking, instead of one congested one, looked like the obvious way to go, says Nilan.

The researchers examined the micropopulations of the Archibald Street area in northern Burlington, downtown Winooski, and the Pine Street corridor in the South End to see which could best sustain a new market. According to Nilan, Pine Street won out, but that doesn’t mean they’re shopping South End real estate just yet. “We have to really begin our internal process,” he explains. “We work with a board of directors. We have to vet a project against our policies.”

Nilan says that he and the board are still at the very beginning of the road toward expansion and he’s not willing to name even a vague opening date. “I used to be in the restaurant business for years,” he says. “Things always take more time than you think they will. We haven’t even gotten to the point of seriously looking at different sites.”

Whatever they settle on, Nilan says that because it will be in a neighborhood, the new spot will likely be smaller than the current 16,000-square-foot store, but will be at least 5000 square feet. Nonetheless, he explains that it will be a full-service co-op, with all or most of the amenities shoppers have come to expect from City Market. 

 

This article appears in The Love & Marriage Issue 2012.

AAN award-winning food writer Alice Levitt is a fan of the exotic, the excellent and automats. She wrote for Seven Days 2007-2015.

15 replies on “City Market to Open Second Greater-Burlington Location”

  4. Does anyone else worry that without the what always strikes me as large cadre of UVM and Champlain students shopping at City Market, its enviable $$ per square footage numbers might not be so high?  Especially for the prepared foods section, which I assume is a strong profit center.  Winooski surely needs access to fresher and better fruits and veggies & a viable and more healthy set of options for eating in the NNE would be great but is there is a sufficient level of available discretionary income, even if it is food budget income, to replace the student and downtown lunch crowd to maintain two stores?

  5. VERY familiar patron and member of City Market…would love to see them open up a store in Winooski.  Winooski is an absolute food ghetto and could benefit HUGELY from a city market store opening up.  The store would be easily accessible to a huge number of commuters and could replicate the same financial model by also providing cheap options for Winooski residents.

    As a current South End resident I love the idea of getting another location within walking distance, but it doesn’t seem necessary considering the proximity to the existing one.  Also, imagine combining the existing Pine St. traffic with existing City Market traffic and the resulting fun…

  7. if there was a City Market location in the southend,
    particularly on pine street, or even off shelburne rd, and if it had
    ample parking then I would visit almost every day for lunch.  I do this
    already with Healthy Living but HL is further away from my office and it
    is getting more and more crowded!!  Finally, I should mention, that 95%
    of the time I go to HL for lunch I also spend $10 to $50 on buying
    other items such as groceries.  City Market, get in on the action! 
    Consumers love to have choices!!

  8. Of course the Old North End as an option was considered and then shelved. Few retailers of that size are willing to take a chance in the ONE. Doesn’t the South End basically already have Shaw’s and Price Chopper, with Hannaford’s and Healthy Living not too far away. The ONE could desperately use a food retailer that wasn’t a convenient store or a bar. 

  11. I am a UVM grad student (former undergrad, as well) and I shop a lot at City Market for the prepared foods although I go to Price Chopper for basic house hold items. Just became a member 3-weeks ago. I would think that something in the NNE or Winooski would be better location than Pine Street. Winooski has lots of empty space ready to be filled.

  12. i would love to see this in the old theater in the NNE, but it would be right across the parking lot from hannaford’s. maybe a bit closer in… to draw from the ONE and the new Burlington College campus…? but then you might as well be at the main location.

    we could really use a closer option for local and organic, and a small cafe for lunch / prepared foods would be welcome…

    but as a member (and a family that does 90% of our shopping there) i think the coop needs to open where there will be the greatest return on the substantial investment in spreading the good food and good work that they do… so i could see pine st. (competing with fresh market though on a smaller scale) drawing in folks from shelburne / s. burlington. as a potential better fit, and definitely more ‘urban’ than the burbs out here in the NNE.

  13. How on earth did Pine Street win over Winooski? Pine already has decent grocery options, including a Shaws and Price Chopper not too far away. Winooski has nothing, and I am sure their downtown residents would swarm into a market if one was built.

  15. A second location needs to be in Winooski.  There are too few options for healthy food in Winooski.  I live in the South End and I’d love the convenient access, but for Winooski, access to quality food is a social justice issue.  

    I know the original site in Winooski didn’t work, but there are other sites.  Please re-evaluate Winooski.

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