New Wegmans Opens Today in Virginia

Wegmans in Gainesville, Va., (officially known as Wegmans Lake Manassas) opened today. The Washington Post provided this story with this unique aspect about the store:

Although each store offers a similar selection of goods, Dempsey said the decor varies. Each store has a mural along the back wall representing the region. The Gainesville store's mural depicts scenes such as the cherry blossoms in the District and the Shenandoah mountains. And the mural would not be complete, Dempsey said, without a scene of the Manassas Battlefield.

New Wegmans Planned for Fairfax County in Northern Virginia

Dulles. Fairfax. Woodbridge. Lake Manassas. Leesburg. Fredericksburg.

Now add Mount Vernon in Fairfax County to the list of locations for Wegmans in Northern Virginia. According to an article in the Mount Vernon Gazette:

By Chuck Hagee, Gazette
Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Wegmans Grocery is finally coming to Mount Vernon-Lee districts. But, primarily to Lee District, since the plot of land of its future home only contains a small corner in Mount Vernon District.

That was the word delivered by Lynne J. Strobel, Esq., of Walsh, Colucci, Lubeley & Walsh to members of the Mount Vernon-Lee Chamber of Commerce during their luncheon last Thursday at Belle Haven Country Club. "Wegmans is 100 percent committed to this project," she said.

The project she was talking about, to be known as "The Hilltop Village Center," will be located at the intersection of Telegraph Road and Beulah Street, presently home to a construction and demolition debris landfill operation and a nine hole golf course.

Construction Begins for New Wegmans in Leesburg

Today's the day the dirt started to move for the new Wegmans in Leesburg, Va., about 20 miles outside of Washington, D.C. It'll be the fifth Virginia store (Dulles, Fairfax, Woodbridge and Gainesville).

The Leesburg location is at The Village at Leesburg, being developed by Dallas-based Cypress Equities and Washington-based Kettler at Route 7 and River Creek Parkway. The 140,000 square foot Wegmans is expected to open in November, 2009.

Why No Wegmans in Albany?

As mentioned in a previous post, a huge new Wegmans store in Henrietta near Rochester will be opening Sunday.

Of course, that's great news for the local Rochester area. Meanwhile, multiple stores continue to operate in Buffalo and Syracuse.

But why has Wegmans ignored the Albany-Schenectady-Troy area all of these years? Let's look at some demographics:

Metro Area --- Population
Buffalo --- 1,170,111
Rochester --- 1,039,028
Syracuse --- 732,117
Jamestown --- 30,726
Ithaca --- 29,952
-----------------------------------
Albany --- 850,957

Of course, population density is not the sole determining factor for Wegmans to consider, but one wonders why Albany, the state's capital, has been left out for so long? It's a relatively wealthy area with Saratoga Springs, universities and other job centers. And plenty of people.

With talk of expanding to Boston, perhaps Albany will finally become a Wegmans town, otherwise, there will be an even larger hole on the store locator map.

The current expansion pattern and new stores are centered in the D.C. suburbs, which makes sense as there is plenty of disposable income and people in that major metro region.

But why not Albany? What's wrong with Albany?