Giant to Open… GIANT Flagship Store in Center City

A two-story grocery store is coming to Center City. The store is appropriately called Giant, because the size of the store is gonna be… huge.

The store will be part of a new mixed-use development coming to 23rd Street, across from the Schuylkill River, called Riverwalk. It will consist of two apartment towers with Giant taking up 65,000 square feet at the base. The store will be decked out with an outdoor terrace and PARKING (!!!!) for those who fancy doing their grocery shopping by the week instead of daily. Giant will be located in the first building, under construction now at 60 N. 23rd Street, that will have 291 apartments. The second tower will be built at 2301 John F. Kennedy Blvd. and will contain a whopping 321 apartments.

Giant is a newcomer on the Philly grocery scene, but the company isn’t planning on starting small. The Dutch grocer, owned by Netherlands-based Ahold Delhaize, has already opened the doors on two locations of Heirloom Market, its subsidiary small-format store. Two more locations in Queen Village and NoLibs are in the works. The vast success of the Heirloom Markets convinced Giant that the City of Brotherly Love could support a flagship supersized store. Apparently the company has been working with Riverwalk’s building team for a year to pull the deal together.

Right now the plan is for Giant to open in autumn of next year, assuming everything goes according to plan. It will be the largest grocery store in Center City, although still about 25,000 square feet smaller than a typical Giant store. Still, the company is said to be excited that, since this is floor-up construction, they can be liberal with the customizations that make urban shoppers happy.

“This particular one is one that I’m personally excited about,” said Nicholas Bertram, president of Giant, which is based in Carlisle. “The location, embedded into a residential tower, is a unique place to be for a grocer.”