Reinventing Wilde Lake Village Green

This is kind of a good news bad news deal.

The good news is that Kimco, the owner of the Wilde Lake Village Center, is willing to make a $40 million investment to remake the oldest village center in Columbia.

The bad news, at least for some folks, is that the future center will not likely have a grocery store.

I think the good news outweighs the bad news in this instance. Kimco Realty Corporation owns interests in 1,973 retail properties in 45 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Chile. They have long standing relationships with just about every major food retailer in the country. If they are unable to attract a grocery store to Wilde Lake it is highly unlikely that anyone else could. They didn’t just rely on their chain store contacts either. They also attempted to get David’s Natural Market and Produce Galore to split the former Giant space giving each merchant an expanded store. Word has it that while David’s was interested, Produce Galore took a pass.

It’s probably time to accept the fact that a traditional grocery store will no longer be part of this village center and be grateful for the fact that at least someone is willing to make a major financial commitment to give the center a new life.