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Wednesday, February 20, 2008 - 9:02 AM CST

Schnucks to open downtown grocery store

St. Louis Business Journal - by Lisa R. Brown

Downtown city dwellers and workers will finally have a full-service grocery store with the opening of a Schnucks at Ninth and Olive in St. Louis, Mo.

Schnuck Markets Inc. is expected to make the announcement at a press conference at the Ninth Street Garage at 4 p.m. on Wednesday. The new Schnucks store will be located on the ground floor of the parking garage and is slated to open in late 2008 or early 2009.

Schnucks will lease the street-level retail space from the Missouri Development Finance Board, the owner of the garage.

The Business Journal reported in May 2007 that Schnuck Markets planned to open a grocery downtown. The company would not confirm it at that time.

The planned 20,800-square-foot urban concept store, a first for Schnucks, will be smaller than the chain's typical stores, which are about 55,000 square feet. The store will feature all of the services of a traditional store, including a pharmacy, floral department, bakery and meat department. The store also will feature a Kaldi's Coffee bar, and a 6,303-square-foot mezzanine with a wine department, tapas bar and seating space.

Schnucks is planning to tap into the growing residential population downtown. Since 1999, 59 residential properties have opened or are under construction, representing 4,800 units, according to the nonprofit Downtown St. Louis Partnership. Downtown's residential population has grown to 10,100, up from 8,000 in 2000.

The store at Ninth and Olive won't be Schnucks' first store downtown. The grocery chain had a store at Seventh and Olive that closed in the 1980s. Schnuck Markets owns eight stores in the city of St. Louis.

Schnucks will be competing with City Grocers, a 7,000-square-foot store across Olive Street that opened in September 2004. Schnucks also will face competition when Gilded Age and Koman Properties open a 35,000-square-foot grocery store on property on the western edge of the Lafayette Square neighborhood, just south of downtown.

Craig Heller, developer of the Syndicate Trust Building at 917 Olive St., said previously announced plans to expand the City Grocers store into 14,000 square feet on the ground floor of the Syndicate Trust Building have been canceled.

In a statement, Mayor Francis Slay said the new store will be a big draw for those considering downtown living.

"More and more people are now calling downtown home," Slay said. "One of the most frequent questions we hear from people considering downtown living is 'Where is the grocery store?' We can now answer that question -- downtown residents will now be able to find the same great Schnucks quality they have grown to expect at a location only a few blocks from where they live."

lrbrown@bizjournals.com