Total Wine expands to RiverGate shopping center in Charlotte

A familiar wine superstore will fill a vacant anchor spot at the RiverGate shopping center in southwest Charlotte.

Signs went up Wednesday for Total Wine with “beer, cigars and more” on the building and in the parking lot at 1415 Steel Creek Road, about 4 miles from Lake Wylie and near the South Carolina border. The 15,500-square-foot space was previously home to Books-A-Million and then Tuesday Morning homegoods store, which closed last year after the company filed for bankruptcy.

This will be Total Wine’s fifth store in the Charlotte area.

The store is expected to open the first week of June, Molly Prince Sarn, RiverGate leasing agent with The Shopping Center Group told The Charlotte Observer on Thursday.

The new store is not far from popular Frugal MacDoogal, about 4 miles away on Festival Drive in Fort Mill, South Carolina, near Carowinds off Interstate 77. The nearly 21,000-square-foot beverage warehouse has been selling liquor, wine and beer for almost 30 years, according to Frugal MacDoogal’s website.

RiverGate also has a 2,8950-square-foot restaurant and retail wine shop called The Wine Shop. The locally-owned store opened in 2008.

Other neighbors at the 232,803-square-foot shopping center include Old Navy, Target, The Home Depot, Best Buy, Marshall’s and PetSmart.

In November, Sprouts Farms Market opened across from RiverGate in the 24,250-square-foot former Earth Fare store.

WHAT TO EXPECT AT TOTAL WINE & MORE

Here’s what you’ll see at Total Wine & More:

Each store typically

A

carries about 8,000 wines from “every wine-producing region in the world,” the company website says.

Stores also carry more

A

than 2,500 beers including U.S. craft breweries and imports.

And stores are stocked

A

with over 3,000 different liquors.

Hiring at Total Wine at RiverGate has begun for positions including cashiers, sales specialists and stockers, the company’s website shows. Total Wine officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

MORE ABOUT TOTAL WINE

There are four other Total Wine stores in the Charlotte area:

1600 E Woodlawn

A

Road in Charlotte

5341 Ballantyne Commons

A Pkwy. in Charlotte

8054 Concord Mills

A

Boulevard in Concord

20615 Torrence Chapel

A Road, Cornelius

Last year, Total Wine closed its Birkdale Village store in Huntersville and moved into a larger Lake Norman spot 3 miles away in Cornelius, off Interstate 77, The Charlotte Observer reported.

The company opens an average 15 stores each year, according to Total Wine’s LinkedIn page.

Total Wine started in 1991 in Delaware. Now based in Bethesda, Maryland, Total Wine has 266 stores in 28 states, according to the company website.