Andy Davis

aldavis@press-citizen.com

Grocery store chain Trader Joe's plans to open a store at Coralville's Iowa River Landing next year.

In a Monday announcement, the company said the store is planned for the southeast corner of Interstate 80 and First Avenue. The store will be about 13,000 square feet, the announcement said, and is scheduled to open in the second half 2017.

City Administrator Kelly Hayworth said the building that will house the store will be built through a partnership between San Diego-based OliverMcMillan and Iowa City's Hodge Construction. Bringing the Monrovia, Calif.-based store to Coralville also bodes well for future growth, he said.

"It's a huge addition to what's already going on at the Iowa River Landing. The positive thing about this is that they're a well-respected national retailer that is saying the Iowa River Landing is a great place to do business," Hayworth said. "I think in the long term, this will help us down the road with other national retailers as well."

And although there are several other grocery store options in the area, Hayworth said the new Trader Joe's will provide another option to the community.

"We want to make sure that all of our retailers can be successful. One of the benefits of this location is that there's more people living in the Iowa River Landing district, and this gives them an opportunity to have a place where they can walk to buy their groceries," he said.

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The Coralville store will be the second in Iowa, joining the 6305 Mills Civic Parkway location in West Des Moines that opened in 2010.

Coralville City Council member Mitch Gross said negotiations with Trader Joe's have been ongoing for nearly five years.

"When we were talking with them at that time, they were just talking about getting into the West Des Moines market and wanted to see how that went first," Gross said. "We're a very different market here with the university and the interstate. There were other well-known grocery stores that wanted to open here, but we wanted to make sure it was the right fit."

According to its website, Trader Joe's began as Pronto Markets, a convenience store chain, 1958. In 1967, the first store opened in Pasadena, Calif. According to a list of locations, Trader Joe's has about 466 locations across 36 states with five more stores planned to open in 2017, not counting the Coralville location.

Trader Joe's carries imported foods and beverages, including artisan breads, Arabica bean coffees, international frozen entrees, 100 percent juices, fresh crop nuts, deli items and vitamins as well as staples like milk and eggs. The store also carries more than 3,000 items under its own private labels like Trader Jose's, Trader Ming’s and Trader Giotto’s. In its announcement, the company said it purchases from manufacturers more often than from distributors.

The announcement also comes at a time when city officials are working to bring an ice arena to fruition at the Iowa River Landing. Hayworth said work on the final designs for the arena and on fundraising is still ongoing, but the hope is to break ground by next year.

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Reach Andy Davis at 319-887-5404 or at aldavis@press-citizen.com, and follow him on Twitter as @BylineAndyDavis.