There are many wonderful neighborhoods in the City of St. Louis.
These city neighborhoods offer historic homes, walkable communities and friendly neighbors. But some of the best neighborhoods don’t have all of the conveniences that you would find in a suburban community.
Grocery stores are few and far between.
You might be willing to fill up your gas tank on your errand in another part of town or use the dry cleaners near your office, but you want a grocery store close to home.
You want to get the ice cream in the freezer before it melts. You want to be just minutes away when you realize you are out of milk for cereal. And you want a store where you can grab everything you need in one stop.
New Grocery Store Opening in Lafayette Square:
Over the last few months, I’ve been watching the construction of the new Fields Foods grocery store that is located between Lafayette Square and Soulard.
The current grocery options for residents in Lafayette Square and Soulard are limited.
They can go to Soulard Farmers Market, but hours are limited and you simply can’t get everything you need at even the city’s biggest farmers market.
They can also head downtown to Culinaria.
I love Culinaria, but it’s definitely a drive from the Soulard and Lafayette Square neighborhoods. During game days and business hours, traffic and parking would eliminate Culinaria for me unless it was an emergency.
The other grocery options are small mom & pop markets with limited supply, low-income neighborhood style grocery stores or a 20-30 minute drive to another neighborhood for a full service grocery store.
Image Credit: Fields Foods
Fields Foods is a welcome addition to the Lafayette Square neighborhood.
Scheduled to be open this winter, the grand opening will be here before we know it.
The Fields Foods website describes the store as:
Fields Foods is a full-service grocery store located in the heart of historic Lafayette Square near downtown St. Louis. Here, our team of dedicated, knowledgeable foodies provides customers with an incredible selection of fresh, delicious, affordable foods for an unparalleled shopping experience. While we feature a wide selection of foods from a variety of origins, we’re most passionate about our local food selection.
Local foods are the freshest, most nutritious, best tasting products available because we’re able offer them at the peak of vine-ripened freshness. The short travel time keeps our prices low, our food fresh and its nutritional content high. It also helps support our local economy.
How will Fields Foods Affect Real Estate Prices?
While there is no way to predict exactly how a new upscale grocery store will affect real estate values, it is bound to increase interest in nearby properties.
The Georgian Condos are located directly across the street from a Walgreens and the new Fields Foods grocery store. The grocery store will offer residents new options for grocery shopping and also an easy solution for dinner-to-go in a part of town that lacks drive-thru restaurants. The store will also add to the urban landscape, eliminating a big empty field between the Walgreens and the highway off ramp.
I helped some clients purchase a condo in The Georgian Condos when there were brand new. They were excited there would be retail options directly across the street. A few years later, Walgreens was built and they welcomed the convenience it brought.
Due to personal circumstances, they have their condo on the market now and won’t be there to see the completion of the grocery store. The buyer who purchases this condo is getting a great deal. The buyer gets instant equity because the condo is a short sale, listed $25,000 less than another unit that just sold with the same floor plan.
Plus, once the grocery store is completed, demand for the building should increase. And increased demand always drives up prices.
This condo, and the others in the building, should appreciate well over the next few years in part due to the new grocery store.
Lafayette Square was already a wonderful neighborhood with an amazing park, coffee shop, restaurants and housing. With a new grocery store, it just got a little bit better.
See for yourself a bit more about the neighborhood and condo currently for sale in The Georgian in my video.
