Discount grocery store chain Aldi is set to open its second Centre Region location later this month, about five months after opening its first.
Aldi’s new store at 780 Benner Pike, next to the Nittany Mall, is on track to open on March 24, a company executive confirmed on Thursday.
“We’re pleased to be opening a second store in the State College area in less than a year and have been thrilled with the community’s warm reception,” JR Perry, ALDI Saxonburg Division vice president, wrote in an email. “Both stores bring an elevated shopping experience to area customers, with a wide selection of quality products at an outstanding value.”
The 19,221-square-foot store, located on the former Krentzman Supply property at the corner of Benner Pike and Shiloh Road, joins the 1798 N. Atherton St. store as State College area locations for the grocer, which previously had its nearest locations in Blair and Mifflin counties.
The 20,422-square-foot Atherton Street store opened in October 2021 as the first building at the Patton Crossing development, the 30-acre commercial and residential development on the site of the former Penn State Mobile Home Park site.
Like the Atherton Street store, the Benner Pike location will employ 15 to 20 people. It is currently hiring.
“At ALDI, we streamline our approach to staffing, creating cost-saving efficiencies that are passed onto our customers,” Perry wrote.
The new location will have 90 parking spaces, with four ADA spaces and four curbside pickup spaces located near the entrance to the store at the southwest corner of the building.
Access to the property will be right-in/right-out from Benner Pike as well as a full-movement intersection at the mall access road between the property and the former Sears Auto Center that connects to Shiloh Road.
The store has a “dual-tower” layout, raised at both the north and south ends. That’s not a typical design for Aldi stores, which often have one tower at the entrance. The second was included, based on comments from College Township on an initial concept plan presented in 2020, because of the building’s location as “gateway,” to the area.
“This building will be a little bit more expensive and a little nicer because of that,” Rory Garr, Aldi’s director of real estate for western Pennsylvania, said at a College Township Council meeting in February 2021.
Garr previously said that Aldi had long been looking to get into the State College market and was fortunate to find prime locations become available in quick succession.
“We’ve been trying in the area for a long time, and we were lucky enough to have the development on North Atherton then find this piece of property [on Benner Pike] and work out the parameters of the deal,” Garr said.
