The much-awaited opening of the Harris Teeter grocery store in Columbia in May could bring a boom in sales for neighboring businesses that have suffered without an anchor store.
“It?s been a dry two years,” said Bill Harrison, the owner of Kings Contrivance Liquor and Smoke Shop.
Sales at Harrison?s store have been down 15 percent to 20 percent since the Safeway grocery store closed in June 2006, he said.
Without a grocery store to generate foot traffic, fewer shoppers are stopping by the smaller shops in the village center.
“The supermarket is a big draw,” Harrison said.
The North Carolina-based store will open May 21 aftera kickoff ceremony the evening before, said spokeswoman Jennifer Panetta.
This will be the second Harris Teeter in Maryland after one in Germantown in Montgomery. The chain has nearly 170 stores, mainly in the South.
“We hope our commitment to top-quality products, variety and customer service will be the difference that the community is looking for,” Panetta said.
A new store will benefit area businesses and residents alike, said Ruth Brill, a Kings Contrivance resident, on her way to Bagel Bin and Deli on a recent morning.
“It?s the greatest thing that?s happened in years,” Brill said.
Competition will be good for the other grocery stores, said Brill, who has been shopping at the Giant Foods store in the Owen Brown village center but vowed to shop closer to home when the store opens.
Brill said she was confident a Harris Teeter could thrive in the struggling village, even as other Columbia villages struggle with closed grocery stores and the planned opening of a nearby Wegmans.
Some residents familiar with Harris Teeter are armed with their frequent-shopper cards in anticipation of the opening, said Village Manager Anne Brinker.
“It?s been difficult on the residents and very difficult on the merchants not having the additional food traffic,” she said. “It will be nice to have more variety.”
