Columbus is finally getting a third Trader Joe’s, and it’s headed to Polaris.
The new store will sit at 2109 Ikea Way, near Ikea and Top Golf. Plans filed with the City of Columbus on July 8 detail a full interior build-out of a newly constructed retail building “into a Trader Joe’s store,” complete with new fixtures, millwork, flooring, and lighting. The paperwork lists the store number as Trader Joe’s #889.
Columbus Business First broke the news, and Trader Joe’s confirmed the store to the outlet while declining to share an opening date.
Permits tell the full story. The shell building at that address was permitted back in April and is under construction, a plumbing permit for it was issued July 21, and the Trader Joe’s fit-out application is now under city review.
It’s been a long wait. Trader Joe’s opened its first Central Ohio store on Sawmill Road in Dublin in 2002, added the Easton store in 2004, and then went two decades without giving the region another one. In that time the Columbus metro added more than 500,000 people, and the chain has since opened stores around Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Dayton. Columbus shoppers kept driving to Sawmill and Easton and kept clamoring for more stores. Now those cries have been answered.
The two existing stores aren’t standing still either. The Easton location is in the middle of a small expansion into the former GNC space next door.
No opening date yet. Trader Joe’s has not added the store to its official announcements page, so watch for hiring signs and a “Now Open” banner sometime after the drywall dust settles.
Until then, Sawmill and Easton remain the only places in town to fight for a parking spot over good, cheap wine and frozen orange chicken.
Featured image credit: DoulosBen / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).
