Aldi opens low-cost grocery store in Chapel Hill. Here’s the grand opening details.
Aldi opened its doors this week at Eastgate Crossing in Chapel Hill to shoppers looking for low-cost grocery options.
The Germany-based store is the second, anchor grocery tenant for the shopping center, which already has a popular Trader Joe’s. Aldi is open daily from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
This week’s “soft opening” will be followed by a grand opening event at 8:45 a.m. Aug. 18, Aldi officials said in a news release. Customers can pick up free shopping bags and keychains at the event, and register for a chance to win a $500 Aldi gift card, they said.
Orange County records show Aldi signed a 10-year lease in April 2021 with Eastgate’s owner KRG Eastgate Chapel Hill LLC. The lease gives Aldi the right to renew its lease in five-year increments over the next 35 years.
In June 2021, the town’s Community Design Commission approved plans for a 25,530-square-foot store at Eastgate Crossing between East Franklin Street and Fordham Boulevard. The space is near Kipos restaurant and the Dollar Tree, and across the parking lot from Trader Joe’s.
The opening was delayed while the grocer renovated the space and the storefront, previously occupied by Stein Mart. The department store closed many of its stores, including the Chapel Hill location, after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020.
Aldi is known for its budget shopping experience and exclusive brands. Shoppers “rent” grocery carts for 25 cents — the quarter is returned when the cart is placed back in the corral — and either bring their own bags or buy them at the checkout counter. The company recently committed to eliminating all plastic bags by 2023, the release said.
The Chapel Hill store also will offer online ordering and curbside pickup.
“Our stores are designed to make grocery shopping smarter, faster and easier, and we’ve been voted the price leader for five years running,” said Krysta Cearley, Salisbury regional vice president for Aldi. “We’re excited to open our first Aldi store in Chapel Hill and introduce local customers to a new, more affordable way of shopping.”
Aldi is expanding, the release noted, and could add 150 more stores nationwide by the end of the year. It now has over 2,000 stores in 38 states and is aiming to become the nation’s third-largest retailer based on the number of stores, it said.
Several dozen Aldi stores have opened in North Carolina, including in the last few years in Durham and Wake counties. A second Orange County store has been approved for a vacant site near the Sheetz gas station and Walmart on N.C. 86 in Hillsborough.
In Chapel Hill, Wegmans also opened a store in 2021. That store, one of four added to the Triangle in the last year, is just a five-minute drive from Eastgate Crossing at 1810 Fordham Blvd.
Eastgate Crossing sold, changes
KRG Eastgate Chapel Hill LLC, an affiliate of the Kite Realty Group real-estate investment company, bought the 14-acre shopping center in January 2021 from its longtime owner Federal Realty Investment Trust.
A deed filed with the Orange County Register of Deeds office does not specify a purchase price for Eastgate Crossing, but a Kite Realty financial report shows the company paid a combined $68 million for the property and a remaining 15% interest in Pan Am Plaza, a $550 million hotel and convention center expansion project in Indiana.
Eastgate Crossing has undergone several changes since the council created the Blue Hill District in 2014. Development in the district, which lies along Fordham Boulevard and Elliott, Franklin and Ephesus Church roads, follows a form-based code for how buildings should look and fit.
The Town Council does not review or vote on Blue Hill District projects. The Community Design Commission and town manager approve them to more quickly move projects to construction.
The shopping center also lies in a floodplain for Booker Creek, which was channeled through a culvert under the parking lot and shops when Eastgate replaced a farm and wetlands in 1958, before modern development rules.
In 2007, Federal Realty made a number of improvements to try and stem the flooding that regularly damages many of its businesses.
The town also recently completed the expansion of a natural flood basin between Eastgate and the Village Plaza shopping center on South Elliott Road. The basin is supposed to reduce floodwater rising from Eastgate’s parking lot and give the water time to move more slowly downstream.
Todd Bonnett, Aldi’s director of real estate, told the commission the new store will include floodproofing measures, such as floodgates.
This story was originally published July 23, 2021 at 5:45 AM with the headline "Aldi opens low-cost grocery store in Chapel Hill. Here’s the grand opening details.."
