Journal Sentinel reporter Tom Daykin confirmed what people have been hearing yesterday. Sendik's Fine Foods at the Shoppes at Wyndham Village will CLOSE by the end of the month. Roundy's has acquired the store and will turn it into a Pick n Save, and will reopen as such in November.
What's concerning me is how Roundy's expects to have three Pick n Save locations all so close to each other. The stores I'm talking about are the ones at 76th & Rawson, Hwy 100 & Janesville, and now this new one on Hwy 100 & Drexel. I just haven't seen the massive growth in demographics that would tell me that a Pick n Save on Hwy 100 & Drexel would work out, given the fact that all those in the demographic area already go to the other two that are currently open.
Does this mean Roundy's will close one of their other 2 locations in the immediate area? I don't think so. The one on Rawson just got an facelift of sorts, and is on one of Franklin's busiest intersections. The one in Hales Corners (Hwy 100 & Janesville) was recently built as a larger store from the original one at the Garden Plaza strip mall, which they shut down once the new store was completed and is still vacant to this day.
So what does this tell us? Fortunately, we won't have an empty box for too long after Sendik's Fine Foods departs the city. It'll be Pick n Save before the Christmas shopping season. I suppose another plus is the fact that residents in the neighboring high-end subdivisions won't have to be worried about the first SuperTarget in the metropolitan area being across from their homes. If anything, what we're seeing here is Roundy's getting somewhat defensive of their home turf by preventing a SuperTarget or a Greatland Target (which also sells a lot of groceries) from getting a foothold near two of their more popular food stores (Rawson and Hales Corners).
On the other side of things, the dreams of Greenway Station are now long gone. However, a Pick n Save and a Target could generate extra traffic and thus make the center more appealing for, say, a Panera Bread or salon & spa to locate in one of the outlot buildings. It all comes down to what the potential tenants want, and from what we're seeing with the closure of Sendik's tells us that they weren't generating enough traffic to even keep themselves afloat. Maybe Pick n Save will...
