Giant Eagle Opening First Of Its Discount Stores In Pittsburgh Area
The discount grocery store is expected to open in the fall.
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If you're looking for the best value – or in this case, Valu – you might want to check out the progress of a discount grocery store on the way on the heavily traveled McKnight Road in Ross Township.
Giant Eagle confirmed it is planning to open Valu King, a discount version of its chain, sometime in October or November.
“We are excited to bring our first Pittsburgh-area Valu King location,” said Giant Eagle spokesman Dick Roberts.
The store will be located right next door to a Bottom Dollar store that also is set to open later this summer.
Asked why the company is putting a store directly next to the competition, Roberts said, “The time is right to bring that banner to Pittsburgh. It's a good location, and there aren’t many other desirable locations on McKnight Road."
Giant Eagle operates seven Valu King stores:four in northeastern Ohio, two in Erie and one in Johnstown.
The Valu King stores aim to appeal both to budget-minded shoppers as well as those who like fresh produce and other perishables, the Cleveland Plain Dealer recently reported.
In This article
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Ross Township Administration
1000 Ross Municipal Rd, Pittsburgh, PA -
Giant Eagle
1029 Park Plaza Dr, Pittsburgh, PA -
Mary Repischak
7:31 am on Friday, June 29, 2012
It's too bad that they can't just offer more competitive prices in their regular stores.
Lynne
9:16 am on Saturday, June 30, 2012
then how would you get your "free gas"??
Oren Spiegler
9:40 am on Saturday, June 30, 2012
Giant Eagle is being pushed to open Valu King outlets in this area due to the infiltration of Aldi and Bottom Dollar Food, which, bless them, have served to lower the price of groceries everywhere. I no longer visit the Strip District as much as I had, given Aldi's fabulous weekly produce deals, and Bottom Dollar's several "doorbuster"-type deals each week which no other store can match. If I can buy an eight-ounce package of mushrooms at Aldi for 49 cents or 69 cents, and pineapples and one-pound packages of strawberries for 99 cents, why visit the Strip District close to twenty miles away? I have found the quality of Bottom Dollar's meats to be surprisingly good. The more, the merrier: all of the grocery war participants are profiting and the consumer wins!
Liza
10:28 am on Saturday, June 30, 2012
FINALLY, maybe Giant Eagle is getting a clue. Their stores are so large and their prices so high - people don't want to shop like that!
andy
3:20 pm on Friday, July 27, 2012
This has to be the only shopping center location in the country where two grocery discounters share a common wall. Oh what fun there will be in the back loading area of these stores when they both begin operating, Truck wars for sure.
Yes, when the leader gets picked on, there's no place else to go but into attack mode.
Different banners for different price points The only reason the Eagle built those overbloated high priced Market Districts was because Wegmans, from the Buffalo/Rochester area was waiting to pounce on the Pgh area a few years back .
Valu-King opened their first store over twenty years ago, replacing an old Giant Eagle in the McKees Rocks Plaza which has since been torn down being replaced by a beautiful new Aldis on the same spot.
Giant Eagle is fickle. They have had this concept in play for two decades, and now decide to open a ValuKing in space they hold the lease, which was the old Phar-Mor's first location under a joint venture with Giant Eagle.
But they are a private company and as such like Aldi, don't have to listen to stockholders.
At least, comparison shopping will be a breeze. One spouse shops the Bottom Dollar and the other shops the ValuKing and texts each other with price comparison.
And the parking lot should be full of pooling cars and vans. That would save gasoline instead of shopping the Eagle for that "discount" gas perks.
Liza
4:29 pm on Friday, July 27, 2012
I wish Wegmans had been able to come to PGH. The GE Market District concept may try to mimic Wegmans as far as inventory, but they are completely lacking the customer service component. As Andy pointed out, they don't have to listen to stockholders - they also apparently don't feel the need to listen to their customers. I hope GE is feeling some kind of pinch from the arrival of Bottom Dollar, Aldi's and such, and will revisit their business model and put the customer first!