Kroger Is Closing 60 Stores But Adaptive Reuse Options Exist For The Real Estate: One Shuttered Kentucky Grocery Store Was Repurposed As A Car Dealership
Jeff Wyler Honda repurposed a vacant former Kroger grocery store in Louisville, KY and is now the new anchor to an adjacent retail strip mall
Jeff Wyler Honda in Louisville, Kentucky is an anchor to a mall.
Not an "auto" mall but rather an actual retail strip mall with co-tenants that include Subway, Sherwin-Williams, NAPA Auto Parts and GNC.
How did a Honda dealership end up alongside restaurant and retail tenants?
Because it is an adaptive reuse of a building previously occupied by a Kroger grocery store.
Kroger recently announced plans to close approximately 60 stores over the next 18 months.
The Company has not yet listed which specific stores will close but upcoming store closures have been reported in nearly a dozen states.
However the 60 stores are just a tiny fraction of Kroger’s 2,700+ store fleet.
And if past results are any indication the soon-to-be-former Kroger real estate is not likely to remain vacant for long.
Kroger has closed dozens of stores annually in recent years, often in connection with a relocation to a newly developed or expanded nearby site.
Many of these shuttered former Kroger stores were quickly backfilled or repurposed—sometimes for other retail uses but occasionally for adaptive reuse.
Like the former Kroger in a Louisville strip mall that was converted into a state-of-the-art dealership and service center for Jeff Wyler Honda.
In 2016 Kroger closed its ~65,000 square foot store that anchored the 44,000 square foot Dixie Shopping Center on Dixie Highway in Louisville.
The closure was not due to poor performance but rather Kroger’s relocation to a 100,000+ square foot “Marketplace” store that it developed across the street.
Kroger, however, was not the only area tenant that wanted to relocate into much larger space.
Jeff Wyler Honda, located adjacent to the shuttered Kroger, had outgrown its dealership building.
But like Kroger, Jeff Wyler Honda did not want to move too far away.
So the dealership acquired the building that housed the former Kroger grocery store and repurposed it as a car dealership and service center.
The existing footprint of the former Kroger was maintained as Jeff Wyler Honda completed select interior and exterior renovations.
A retail sales center with a large indoor vehicle display area was created in approximately 20,000 square feet of the building.
The remaining 45,000 square feet was repurposed as a parts department and service center with 14 service bays.
No other major changes were made to the site with exception of additional parking lot striping in the rear and installing a fence around a portion of the front lot.
As for the adjacent strip mall?
It remains well occupied by a mix of retail, service and restaurant tenants that include Sherwin Williams, NAPA Auto Parts, Visionworks and Subway.
