Arboretum Village rendering: Courtesy of The Fresh Market
The Fresh Market‘s future home in the Arboretum Village shopping center at Gaston-Garland-Grand “is a very strategic location to serve both sides of [White Rock] Lake,” says Rob Koch, vice-president of real estate.
“That East Dallas neighborhood, especially along the lake, is an area that, through our research, we found is a neighborhood that should serve us well,” Koch says. Nearby residents are a “good sample of the core customer or profile that we target,” Koch continues, with the areas around White Rock being “established markets” and encompassing “the density and activity we look for in a neighborhood.”
The store is slated to open in October, and is one of three stores the North Carolina-based grocer plans to roll out in Dallas; the others are in Southlake and at Turtle Creek Village, which, like Arboretum Village, is being developed by Lincoln Property Company. Koch believes Lincoln’s redevelopment of the Gaston-Garland-Grand center will “make it a new focal point.” (We have a call into Lincoln Property’s Robert Dozier about any other Arboretum Village updates.)
Our analysis of Fresh Market compared it to Central Market, and Koch agrees with that analogy, saying that Fresh Market has similar brands, a mix of organic and conventional products, and a full-service bakery as well as seafood and meat counter, but it has a “smaller footprint and ease of getting in and out.” Fresh Market’s Arboretum Village store, as well as its prototype, comprises roughly 24,000 square feet, compared to the roughly 60,000-square-foot Central Market on Lovers Lane. Koch also says people in the Northeast describe its store as a “smaller and convenient version of a Wegmans.”
“Some people use our store as a grocery shop multiple times per week; for others it’s more of a destination,” Koch says, adding that its shoppers comprise “different types of people from different income and education levels. It really comes down to their appreciation of food.”
Fresh Market will anchor Arboretum Village shopping center, and Koch says the company is cognizant of the “huge contingent of health-minded folks who are walking, biking, running” around the lake and visiting the Dallas Arboretum.
“We’ll have areas for customers to sit if they want to come in and get a cold drink,” he says. “A lot of other tenants are focused on that mindset as well,” Koch says, specifically referring to Luke’s Locker, “and we really hope to find some synergy for that activity.”
Residents can expect more Fresh Market locations in the future, Koch says.
“This is really our beginning of becoming established in the Dallas market,” he says, adding that Dallas eventually may have a dozen Fresh Markets. “We’re starting with these three to test a number of different offerings and make sure we understand the customer response before we move into other neighborhoods.”
