Two years after being thwarted in a bid to enter the East Cobb grocery market, Lidl appears headed for the Johnson Ferry Road corridor.
ToNeTo Atlanta is reporting that the German-based discount chain will be coming to the Woodlawn Square Shopping Center, replacing The Fresh Market, which is set to close Nov. 18.
Lidl, which has opened two other locations in Cobb, is slated to open in East Cobb next summer, according to the report.
In 2017, Cobb commissioners turned down Lidl’s rezoning request to convert the Park 12 Cobb theater on Gordy Parkway into a grocery store after heated community opposition.
Nearby residents complained of traffic issues, but an attorney for Lidl noted during the zoning hearing that some “want to keep the movie theater as much as anything.”
The Fresh Market, a gourmet foods chain, has been at Woodlawn Square since 2003 and has been closing some of its stores around the country in the last couple of years.
Lidl, which operates 10,000 stores, mostly in Europe, made its foray in the U.S. in 2017 along the East Coast.
The Cobb stores are on Powder Springs Road, near the East-West Connector, and on Floyd Road in Mableton.
Another Lidl store was recently approved for Whitlock Avenue in Marietta, after the Marietta City Council rejected an initial rezoning request in 2017.
The only other Georgia store for now is in Snellville. ToNeTo has reported that Lidl is planning stores in Brookhaven, Dunwoody, Peachtree Corners, Roswell, Lawrenceville and Suwanee.
Lidl is a rival to Aldi, another German discount grocer, which has a store at the East Lake Shopping Center in East Cobb (2125 Roswell Road, Suite 30).
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I’m so disappointed that The Fresh Market will be closing. I thoroughly enjoy shopping there a couple of times a week
I would like to know when they’re going to come south of the Airport. Now that I live on the Southside, I realize how slow progress has come south of the airport. I miss Cobb, I love affordability. A Lidl store would fair very well in the Stockbridge/McDonough area
The equity firm that bought out Fresh Market is in the process of extracting all its equity and dismantling it bit by bit. It used to be a family-owned chain that treated its employees well, but has been named The Worst Company To Work For in the US for the past two years (glassdoor.com) because they care only for cutting expenses and wringing every possible penny out of the chain. I’d be surprised if they’re still in operation within three years.
I don’t understand this. Fresh Market is wonderful, why replace it for a discount grocery store?