Kroger ‘Marketplace’ first of its kind in area
Calls Hernando ‘perfect location’
Kroger Co. will break ground Friday on its new Marketplace store in Hernando, touted as the first of its kind and the largest Kroger in Mississippi and the Memphis metro market.
The Marketplace design expands on the traditional grocery store concept, featuring an expanded grocery area but also home fashion and design, bed and bath, kitchen and small appliances, apparel and shoes, Baby World and Hernando’s first Starbucks.
Kroger plans to add more Marketplace stores in the Memphis metro area but doesn’t currently have sites picked out, a spokeswoman for the grocer said.
The store employing the new Marketplace design will be built on the site of the existing Kroger at 2380 Mount Pleasant and add about 250 jobs when completed in fall 2016. Employees at the existing store will move to the new location as well.
“Hernando, Mississippi, is the perfect location for the new Kroger Marketplace store,” Tim Brown, president of Kroger’s Delta Division, said in a release. “This addition falls in line with our Kroger promise to invest over $100 million in the MidSouth area.”
Kroger, the predominant grocer in the area, is upping its game in the Memphis metro market in the wake of added competition from stores such as the new Sprouts Farmers Market stores that opened recently in Lakeland and Germantown.
Hernando Mayor Chip Johnson called Kroger “a good partner” for years and said the city is excited to have the company’s first Marketplace store in the Memphis market.
Kroger spokeswoman Teresa Dickerson said the new Hernando store will be 120,000 square feet.
She said work on the Hernando store will begin in areas behind the existing store and will eventually progress to replace the existing structure.
Memphis-based Montgomery Martin Contractors will serve as the general contractor for the project. Dickerson said in addition to the expected 250 permanent jobs to be added by Kroger, the project will bring construction jobs as well though she wasn’t sure of the number.