VOL. 130 | NO. 185 | Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Trader Joe’s has confirmed plans for its first Memphis-area store. The specialty grocer ended months of speculation and announced Wednesday, Sept. 23, that it would open a 12,500-square-foot store in Germantown.

The store is set to open in third quarter 2016 at 2130 Exeter Road, where it will sit near the northeast corner of Poplar Avenue and Exeter.

In August, the Germantown Planning Commission approved a site plan, which adheres to the municipality's SmartGrown plan and calls for reducing the footprint of a former Kroger building from 61,332 square feet to 46,500 square feet. That structure will be split into three retail bays – 16,100 square feet, 5,700 square feet and 24,700 square feet – to promote infill development.

The plan also includes a new outparcel building across the parking lot, running along the east side of the Exeter sidewalk. The to-be-constructed building will total 19,500 square feet, with Trader Joe's leasing 12,500 square feet of the space.

CAP Germantown LLC is the developer. CAP, standing for Centennial American Properties, has developed over 7 million square feet of commercial space in the southeast, including Trader Joe’s in South Tampa, Fla., and Metairie, La.

Knoxville-based Barry Byrd Architecture will handle the design work; Blair Parker Design LLC in Memphis is the landscape architect.

Across Poplar, the newly established Whole Foods Market overlooks the Germantown Collection Center that abuts the 2130 Exeter site.

“It says a lot about this area,” said Danny Buring of The Shopping Center Group LLC, adding that the new store would draw from “all of Collierville, Germantown and a lot of East Memphis.”

A typical grocery store, he adds, draws traffic from with a one- to three-mile radius around it, while he expects something like the Germantown Trader Joe’s to draw from a much bigger pool, which he estimated to be a 10- to 12-mile radius.

Word of the store will be welcome news to many Memphis-area shoppers, especially the more than 10,000 included in the “Bring Trader Joe’s to Memphis” Facebook group formed in 2012.

The company’s stores carry an array of domestic and imported food and beverages, including artisan breads, Arabica bean coffees, international frozen entrees, deli items and more.

The “trader” in the company name is a reference to the way it sees itself as having blazed a trail through the grocery industry, searching for good value and distinctive products. Employees, called “crew members,” also consider themselves “traders” on the culinary high seas, with some even sporting brightly colored Hawaiian-themed shirts.

Staff reporter Madeline Faber contributed to this article.