Supermarkets in Greater Center City
How a proliferation of grocers in and around downtown have improved livability for an expanding population.
Introduction
Heirloom Market at 801 Market Street
Giant Co. announced last week that it will close its Heirloom Market at 801 Market Street at the end of 2024 after three years in business. The news is undeniably disappointing for a corridor that has long struggled to stabilize and transform, but it is the exception to a trend of tremendous investment and expansion by grocers at all price points across Greater Center City.
Since 2011, 18 supermarkets totaling more than half a million square feet of space have opened between Girard Avenue and Tasker Street. Another five supermarkets totaling more than 150,000 square feet of space are anticipated to open before the end of 2025. Simply put, retailers have responded to the aggregation of population density and spending power throughout Center City and surrounding neighborhoods. Read on for a brief history of their proliferation and some key takeaways as we think about Center City's future.
Giant has opened five stores across Greater Center City in recent years, including this flagship at 23rd and Arch.
Store Openings Over Time
Before 2004
20 years ago, core Center City had almost no full-service grocery stores beyond the historic Reading Terminal Market.
The highest-income neighborhoods supported some smaller format stores such as Rittenhouse Market and what is now an Acme in Society Hill.
Neighborhoods south of Center City supported larger stores, notably Acme, which continued operations in the city even during periods of significant disinvestment and job loss.
2004 to 2010
The city's first Trader Joe's opened at 22nd and Market, bringing a highly sought-after retailer to Center City. Its location, particularly at that time, felt like a gap in the urban fabric dividing the neighborhoods of Rittenhouse and Logan Squares. Famously and controversially, the store did not (and does not) offer a door to Market Street, orienting itself instead towards a parking lot in the rear.
2011 to 2015
It took until the years following the Recession for fast-growing neighborhoods north of Center City to attract full-service supermarkets. opened a store on the edge of Brewerytown, and Acme opened in 2011 just north of the then-nascent Piazza development in Northern Liberties. That store's large footprint (more than 50,000 square feet) is uncommon in city limits and was enabled by developing it on the second floor above a row of smaller street-level storefronts.
2016 to 2020
2016-2020 brought an unprecedented wave of supermarket operators into the market, drawn by population growth that outpaced expectations and coinciding with a renewed interest from several operators in urban-format concepts.
Target made a big splash with smaller format stores, all of them including grocery, opening five locations in Greater Center City. Whole Foods recommitted to the city with a best-in-class flagship store just north of the Parkway (tripling the size of the previous Whole Foods which itself became a Target); Trader Joe's and Aldi each opened second locations; and both MOM's and Sprouts touched down in Philly for the first time.
Perhaps most significantly, Giant took a risk in piloting a zero-parking, smaller-footprint urban concept, Heirloom Market, akin to European supermarkets, opening stores in Graduate Hospital and Northern Liberties. An additional Heirloom debuted at 34th and Chestnut, creating a grocery option near the line between Penn and Drexel's campuses.
2021 to 2024
Investment has continued since the pandemic as new developments have welcomed thousands of new residents. Giant opened its third Center City Heirloom at the Fashion District. It also debuted full-size Giant stores, one of them a flagship location at 23rd and Arch larger than any other supermarket in Greater Center City at around 60,000 square feet. Old City became the second location for Riverwards Produce, bringing a small supermarket to that neighborhood for the first time. Target shuttered one of its five urban format stores at 1126 Chestnut Street in 2023.
Coming Soon
At least five major supermarkets are poised to open in the coming year, further filling in and enriching the grocery landscape across Center City neighborhoods. Lidl will open its first Greater Center City store at Broad and Girard; Sprouts will double down with a location on the Delaware waterfront; Amazon Fresh will come online at 6th and Spring Garden; and Aldi will open its third Greater Center City location along booming Washington Avenue, a half mile west of Giant's newest location at Broad and Washington
Density & Walkability
Move the slider left and right to see the 2004 and 2024 views.
5 Minute Walk to supermarkets - Before 2004 to 2024.
Drag the scrollbar from left to right above to visualize the transformative improvement in walkable access to fresh food and groceries that has taken place over the last two decades. The share of Greater Center City's population within just a 5-minute walk of a full-service supermarket has increased exponentially: 34,000 residents had access in 2004. Today, more than 109,000 do.
5 Minute Walking Time With and Without Giant Heirloom at 801 Market
Giant Co's decision to shutter its 801 Market Heirloom Market represents the first full-service supermarket departure from Center City since this wave of expansion began, though coupled with the loss of the former Target at 1126 Chestnut Street, the Market East area has lost several options for groceries. Even with these closures, 107,500 residents of Greater Center City will remain within a 5-minute walk of a supermarket in 2025.
Population Density by Census Tract
Population Density. Click on a census tract to see the density within it.
Generally, grocers follow residents. While Greater Center City's population density and aggregate income levels give it a lot of highly clustered spending power, this density varies across neighborhoods. The area around Market East, particularly at the eastern end, is notably less dense than many other areas of downtown (click on Center City census tracts to see the wide discrepancy in population density).
This boils down to two things: 1) the blocks just east of 8th and Market are consumed by Independence National Historic Park and block-long federal buildings, and 2) the Market East corridor itself was entirely lacking in any residential structures whatsoever until the East Market project was completed on the 1100 block. While this brought more than 500 units to that end of the street, the project self performs on groceries (MOM's Organic Market is a tenant) and benefits from being within easy reach of both Reading Terminal Market and Trader Joe's.
Apartment developments since 2010 compared to grocery locations
Multi-Family Residences Built After 2010. Dot size correlates with the number of units. The eastern side of Center City has largely missed the apartment boom.
In cities, supermarkets benefit from other categories of shoppers, including daytime office workers seeking lunch or maybe some odds and ends or missing ingredients to bring home for dinner that night; visitors, conventioneers, and tourists stocking their minifridges and AirBnb's; and impulse purchases from pedestrians just passing by.
8th and Market sees decent amounts of nearby workers, commuters, conventioneers, and tourists, but it is missing a critical mass of most grocers' core market: nearby residents. Greater Center City has seen more than 28,000 units of housing built in apartment projects since 2010, but as the map shows, the centers of gravity for this development have missed the eastern end of Market Street entirely. As currently understood, residential projects proposed in association with the Sixers arena would add 720 units between 9th and 11th Street. The decades-long vacancy directly across the street at 800 Market is described as welcoming a large hotel, but the current project description does not include any long-term residential units. It remains to be seen if additional residential projects might occur directly on Market Street between City Hall and Independence Mall. If not, strengthening the area's fundamentals for retail categories like grocers will rest on additional infill and redevelopment occurring on Chestnut and Walnut Streets.
Looking Ahead
Heirloom's departure from Market East will bring another large vacancy to a corridor considered persistently unfinished and in flux. While the loss of such a high-quality and well-executed store is not insignificant, it's important to place this closure in the appropriate context, which is that supermarkets of varying sizes, price points, and concepts have been flocking to Greater Center City for years and making so many of its neighborhoods more walkable and livable.
The fact that 21 of the 33 supermarkets we've tracked across Greater Center City exist outside of the core - that is, south of Pine Street or north of Vine Street - is reflective of the fact that the population of Extended Center City is larger than that in the core, and that those neighborhoods are overwhelmingly residential in nature. Core Center City will need to continue to infill areas which over-index on non-residential uses before it is likely to sustain more grocers.
