CASH SAVER SPRUCES UP
Enjoying solid sales growth, owners of the discount grocery store on Madison are spending $1.5 million to spiff up the 53-year-old building.
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Assured by a new longterm lease, a Memphis retailer will spend $1. 5 million upgrading its 53-year- old Cash Saver grocery store in Midtown.
“The store started showing its age,” said Rick James, owner of Castle Retail Group LLC, which has four of the five Cash Savers in Memphis.
Polishing up the Madison Avenue site is on schedule as an array of merchants and landlords on the Midtown artery revamp storefronts.
At the same time, supermarket giant Kroger Co. is committing $100 million to spruce up its Memphis stores — although James said Castle is not respond- ing to its rival. Instead, Castle’s new lease means it’ll stay on the site at 1620 Madison.
Castle Retail will put a new front on the building, improve the drainage and lighting in front of the store, erect a new sign, paint and repair brickwork, paint the interior, install new inside lights
and replace nearly every shelf.
The former Piggly Wiggly was rebranded as a Cash Saver two years ago. Cash Saver markets itself as a deep discounter, selling all items at the cost of buying them from the wholesaler and getting them on the shelf, plus 10 percent.
“Our business is really, really good,” James said. “Sales have gone up quite a bit.”
The Midtown Cash Saver is flanked by two Krogers — on Union and on Poplar at Cleveland. Cincinnati-based Kroger, the nation’s largest grocery chain, is about to spend millions of dollars replacing the Union store and improving the Poplar location.
Still, the Cash Saver upgrade at Madison is not a response to Kroger, James said.
Instead, it’s a result of finally knowing the store will be at the Madison address for at least the 20 years — plus options — spelled out in a new lease.
The former property owners, the Montesi family, had been considering doing some other development after the old lease expired at the end of this year, James said.
But ultimately the Montesis decided to sell the property to a division of Kansas City-based Associated Wholesale Grocers, which is Cash Saver’s primary wholesaler. Memphis-based Castle Retail signed the new lease with its wholesaler.
“With all that, the way was clear for us to reinvest in that store and get some much-needed repair items and sme update items,” James said.
The construction will continue until Nov. 15, be suspended for the holidays when demand is highest, and resume Jan. 1. The renovation should be completed by late February.
“Anybody who puts in more square footage or sells additional items, they’re all competition to us,” said Joe Bell, Kroger’s area spokesman.“But we’ve got a great investment in our new Poplar Plaza store and the work we are doing in the other two stores” in Midtown, he said.
Kroger is spending $50 million this year and another $50 million over the next three to five years on store upgrades and expansions in the Memphis area.
“It’s going to be a matter of, is everybody else going to react to what we’re doing?” Bell said.
Kroger considers Cash Saver, convenience stores, Walgreens and dollar stores as competitors.
“We’ve got to offer a shopping experience everybody loves, to keep them out of other options,” he said. “That’s a fight day to day.”
James agreed t hat Kroger and Cash Saver are direct competitors.
“We have a lot of customers we have gained over the last two years,” James said. “The low prices appeal to just about everybody in any demographics.”
For example, James said Cash Saver is the “largest craft beer retailer in the city of Memphis. We sell beer cheaper than anyone in the city.”