Displaced by Wegmans, MBI Inc. set to relocate in Norwalk
Collectibles manufacturer MBI Inc. has signed a lease that will allow the Norwalkbased company to remain in the city, even after it vacates its Richards Avenue offices to make way for Connecticut’s first Wegmans supermarket.
MBI signed a lease late last year for 32,648 square feet of office space in the Merritt 7 office complex in Norwalk, according to data from commercial real estate broker CBRE. The company’s new address will be 501 Merritt 7, according to CBRE.
Plans for Wegmans to open its store in Norwalk were announced in March 2022. MBI officials weren’t immediately available on Thursday to comment on how the company plans to stage its relocation from Richards Avenue to the Merritt 7 complex.
But Sabrina Godeski, Norwalk’s director of business development and tourism, said Thursday city officials have been told that MBI will remain at its current location “for at least another six months.”
Godeski said Wegmans’ plans for a 95,000 square foot Norwalk store received the necessary site plan and zoning approvals in August 2022. She said Wegmans officials have not indicated when they will begin demolishing MBI’s current offices to make way for the new supermarket.
The new store will be built on an 11-acre site and be spread across two levels.
At the time plans for the new Connecticut store were announced, Wegman’s officials did not provide a timeline for construction or when the store might open. A spokeswoman with Wegmans did not return calls requesting comment on the grocery chain’s construction plans in Norwalk.
But in a Nov. 30, 2022 post on the company’s website explaining how Wegmans store development process works, company officials said the average amount of time it takes to get from announcing a new store location to when it opens is five years. The actual construction of a new store usually takes about 12 months, according to the post.
“We only open two to three stores a year, but we’re always busy focusing on different aspects of the store opening process,” Dan Aken, Wegmans real estate director said in the post. “It’s amazing to see a site come to fruition once we can finally open our doors and welcome the community into the store.”
Each Wegman’s store employs between 400 and 500 people.