The brand new Louis Delhaize supermarket in the Keerdok car park in Mechelen, which has only been open for a year, will close its doors at the beginning of April. Not enough customers came through. Colruyt Group wants to reopen the store later.
In January last year, there was great enthusiasm among the staff when the Louis Delhaize Group opened a new neighborhood supermarket in the Keerdok car park. The seven hundred square meter store was the first according to Louis Delhaize’s new concept. Initially it was even open on Sundays, but the group quickly dropped that due to lack of success. And in general, the new Louis Delhaize in the Antonia Wolversstraat turned out to be anything but a big crowd puller.
The store was mainly opened with a view to the future, because in the coming years hundreds of new apartments will be built in the area for the development of the new Keerdok city district. In September 2023, it was announced that Colruyt Group has plans to take over 57 Match and Smatch stores, including the Louis Delhaize branch in the parking tower at the Van der Valk hotel.
Below expectations
“We expect a decision from the Belgian competition authority for that acquisition in the second half,” says Hanne Poppe, spokesperson for Colruyt. It is the ambition of the Belgian family business to quickly temporarily reopen the stores as CoMarkt. Then they get a new concept. This will not immediately be the case for Mechelen, among others. “Louis Delhaize has informed us that the store scores significantly below expectations. That is why we want to close it for a slightly longer period of time, so that we can immediately open one of our existing concepts there,” Poppe explains.
The staff was recently informed about the plans. The seven employees can work in one of the other Colruyt stores in the area. They originally came from the Match store on the Haverwerf in the center of Mechelen, where a Spar is now located. The very outdated Smatch store in Borzestraat closed its doors last month. Colruyt Group will not take that over.
2024-02-03 14:29:48
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