A second grocery store is coming to downtown Akron, taking city leaders by surprise. The new store, which does not yet have a name, will be located at 159 S. Main St., directly across from where The Mercantile market is set to open next month.

Shane Wynn, the owner of The Mercantile, was surprised to learn about the new store and is now considering whether it still makes sense to open her business. ‘The reality is, it’s us or them or they both fail,’ she said. ‘It no longer makes any sense to open this store with a direct competitor across the street.’

Competition Concerns

Chris Hardesty, the executive director of the Downtown Akron Development Corp., also expressed concerns about the new store, saying that the downtown population of about 3,000 residents cannot sustain two grocery stores. ‘We don’t have enough people to support two grocery stores,’ he said. ‘We can’t sustain two.’

The new store will sell household items, including toilet paper, paper towels, ketchup, mustard, and milk, which are also items that The Mercantile plans to sell. The store will be owned and operated by the building ownership and will not sell alcohol, unlike The Mercantile, which will sell bottles of wine, coffee, grab-and-go food options, and local gifts.

Original reporting: Signal Akron — read the source article.