Construction has begun on the Tulane Avenue site where California-based Trader Joe’s , the quirky, budget-friendly food retailer with a bohemian image, is expected to open its first Orleans Parish store next year.
The site of the new store is in the heart of the “medical district,” directly across Rocheblave Street from the New Orleans VA Medical Center and bordered also by Banks and South Dorgenois streets.
The Feil Organization, a New York City-based real estate firm whose properties include the Lakeside Shopping Center in Metairie, is the owner and developer of the site.
Neither Trader Joe’s nor Feil have officially confirmed that the site will be a new branded outlet, though sources with knowledge of the plans have confirmed it will be the grocer’s first Orleans Parish store. A separate development group is building a second Trader Joe’s outlet Uptown , on the Freret Street site of the old Lourdes Catholic school.
Feil spokesperson Havana Gazlay confirmed construction has begun on the Tulane Avenue site for a “specialty grocer,” with Landis Construction as the lead contractor and SCNZ Architects as the designer.
“Timeline for completion is summer 2025,” she said.
Feil has spent just over a year going through the permitting process for a grocer that is also allowed to sell alcoholic beverages. The store itself covers about 13,000 square feet, with parking spaces for about 100 vehicles. It will be built at the South Rocheblave and Tulane corner of the site, with a pedestrian entrance on Tulane and vehicle access via Banks and South Dorgenois.
The developer also was permitted last month to add a 3,000-square-foot dental clinic to the site plan. That building will be located on the Doregenois and Tulane Avenue corner.
Trader Joe’s has been around since the late 1960s but has grown fairly modestly compared to other smaller format grocers, despite its popularity. Publix and Kroger’s, for example, each have about 1,300 stores in the U.S., whereas Trader Joe’s has around 580 similar to Whole Foods which started in 1980.
The company’s founder, Joe Coulombe, died four years ago and Trader Joe’s has been expanding more rapidly under new leadership, opening an additional 24 stores across the U.S. this year alone.
It currently operates two outlets in Louisiana, one in Baton Rouge and another on Veterans Memorial Boulevard in Metairie.
The developers of the proposed Freret Street Trader Joe’s recently overcame objections from some preservationists who were against tearing down the three-story, mid-century Lourdes school building to make way for the single-level store.
They successfully argued that there was little historical value in the school building, whereas a Trader Joe’s would finally bring that corner back into productive use after many years.
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