A giant loss?

The Giant in Wilde Lake Village Center is closing this fall, a year before its lease is to expire. This is not a surprise. At 17,000 square feet, the store, built in the late 1960s, is far too small to accommodate the needs of today’s shoppers, who usually take their diverse grocery lists to stores that are three or four times larger.

More generally, Giant has bigger problems. It and other grocers like it are being squeezed by low cost stores like Wal-Mart and the more upscale brands like Harris Teeter, Wegmans and Whole Foods.

So, what to do with the space? The story provides no details, but there are two options that I would support. The first is getting David’s Natural Food Market and Produce Galore to join forces and give Columbia it’s first (nearly) full-sized natural food store. The second, which is bound to happen eventually anyway, is to redevelop the entire village center, something we may want to hold off on, however, until the whole charrette thing is done.