Update on Crofton Wegmans

So when I first moved up to the DC area in 2006, I had it in my mind to start looking for a house in the Crofton area. Leah and I were getting married in a year and I knew we would want to buy a house. Why Crofton? Well, it’s close to DC but not as far east as Annapolis, it has decent schools, and it has some nice housing developments.

Oh yeah, and in May 2006 Wegmans announced they were opening a new store in Crofton. As I was deprived of Wegmans in college (apparently they have some deal with Price Chopper not to move east of Syracuse), I really have not lived near a Wegmans since I left home for college in 1996.

For the uninformed, Wegmans is a chain of grocery stores that started in Upstate NY and has slowly migrated south over the last decade. To say this place has a cult like following is an understatement. Apparently, there are towns and communities that launch letter writing campaigns lobbying Wegmans to come open a store near them.

So now you’re probably thinking - what’s the big deal? While you probably think it’s a little bit silly to talk so highly of a, well, grocery store, it’s kind of one of those things you won’t understand unless you’ve actually been to one. For years Leah heard me rave about this fantastic grocery store that I grew up with, and she never understood what the big deal was until I brought her up to Syracuse for the first time. Yes, she’s hooked now.

What makes Wegmans so great? Well, from the second you walk in, it doesn’t feel like a grocery store at all. In fact, their website says the try to be a “European Open Air Market.” Let’s start with the bakery. Lots of good bread, muffins, cookies, and my favorite: bagels (it’s SOOO hard to find a decent bagel anywhere South of New Jersey - except for North Carolina, which has Brueggers for some reason). Then there’s the massive deli and a restaurant section (to include Chinese food) in which you can eat. I can’t tell you the number of times my friends and I had breakfast/lunch/dinner there, to include a dinner before prom one year… There’s a relatively decent coffee bar (although I have to admit I still prefer Starbucks). They have this massive organic section. Then there is the joy of every high school kid who likes to snack on junk: the bulk food section. They also have an olive bar, tea area, and a really large International foods section. And this is in every store (I’m probably missing something, but you get the gist). Oh… and they have all the things that regular grocery stores do as well. Leah likes it because they carry all kinds of baking ingredients that are hard to find at other groceries… namely things like ginger blossom honey, or Special Dark cocoa powder. Also, Wegmans has consistently been ranked high in Forbes “Best places to work” list. I never worked there, but a lot of my friends did.

I remember one time in high school, I went out with my friends Kristy and Andrea too look for some comet at 1 am (it was a thing for AP physics), only to discover it was overcast (Syracuse, overcast - REALLY?)… we ended up hanging out and talking in the Wegman’s coffee bar until like 3 am (yes, on a school night). Kristy actually made it into first period the next day… Andrea and I did not.

Anyway, the reason I am going on and on about Wegmans – back in 2006, the original announcement said the Crofton Wegmans location would be opening in 2009 (along with a new Target and movie theater). But they ran into a snag. The proposed building site is on Rt 3 and Evergreen Rd (south of Waugh Chapel - incidentally the proposed name for the shopping center is Waugh Chapel South). For those in Anne Arundel County you may remember the flap over illegal fly ash dumping in Gambrills a few years ago. That dumping site is right where Waugh Chapel South is supposed to be built. However, It turns out that the one way to deal with fly ash is to build concrete over it to prevent rain water from seeping through the ground and contaminating the water supply – so building this new shopping center would actually be a good thing.

But… it couldn’t be that easy, because this guy who claimed to represent a group of local Crofton/Gambrills businesses starting lobbying the County to hold up construction for a variety of reasons, but mainly due to the fly ash. However… it turned out that not only did this fellow not own a business, he is actually a paid lobbyist for a grocers union that includes Safeway and Giant (two of the local grocery stores). Yeah, you read that right.

So, seeing as there has not been much movement of the Crofton Wegmans site over the last few months (I drive by there once in a while) and Wegmans has been busy announcing new stores at a bunch of other Maryland locations (Columbia, Landover, Frederick, Germantown, and Abingdon), I actually e-mailed their customer service asking what the deal was. Only took a day for them to respond… here it is:

Thank you for your email. Here is the latest information that we have from our
Real Estate Department regarding the Crofton, MD store:

We remain unable to provide a definite opening date for this store. The developer
has additional work to do and will not be able to deliver a building pad to
Wegmans before 2009. Therefore the store cannot open before 2010.

Sorry I don't have better news. Have a
great day!

So that’s the latest on our Wegmans… sigh. 2010 will be a long wait.