GREEN TOWNSHIP

Kroger Marketplace planned for Green Township

Kurt Backscheider
kbackscheider@communitypress.com

GREEN TWP. — The township will be home to the West Side’s first Kroger Marketplace store.

The Kroger Co. plans to build a Marketplace location across the parking lot from its existing Kroger store at 5830 Harrison Ave. The new store will sit on the large empty parcel next to the Cinemark movie theater.

“Clearly it’s an expansion of shopping opportunities,” Adam Goetzman, Green Township’s assistant administrator and director of planning and development, said.

“We don’t have a Kroger Marketplace in this area. This puts us on par with other communities that do have this type of facility.”

He said the closest Kroger Marketplace for township residents is in Harrison, Ohio.

“The Marketplace stores do offer a wider variety of merchandise and shopping options. For people who like that particular shopping experience, they’ll now be able to stay in Green Township instead of driving elsewhere,” he said.

In addition to food, Kroger Marketplace stores also carry home fashion and decor items, bed and bath products, kitchen and small appliances, home office products and toys.

Goetzman said the new store will be roughly 124,000-square-feet in size. The project also features an expanded fuel center. Kroger’s existing store on Harrison Avenue is about 71,000-square-feet.

Once the Marketplace store is open, he said Kroger will either re-purpose its existing store for another use or raze the building to allow for redevelopment.

He said the site the new store will occupy, which had previously been approved for commercial use, has been sitting empty for more than 20 years. This project takes a piece of vacant land, places it into the township’s tax base and opens the door for future development opportunities on the parcel where the present Kroger stands, he said.

“Identifying a diverse development for that property would help broaden the economy and job market in the township,” he said.

Kroger still has to finalize the design of the new Marketplace store, but Goetzman said construction could start sometime this fall. Since construction in winter isn’t ideal, he said it’s also possible the work wouldn’t begin until early spring 2016.