Wards Corner Now – Wards Corner, Norfolk, Virginia

If you have not noticed, the Farm Fresh grocery store at Wards Corner has been undergoing significant upgrades over the last few months.  Thus far, the interior has been renovated with new fixtures and the exterior has been repainted and new signs installed.  Next on their list of improvements is a new pharmacy which will begin construction tonight.  They have also filed for a special exception to operate a drive-thru.  The drive-thru will be for a “pharmacy window and canopy along with related minor site work (signs, pavement markings, etc.)”.

The pharmacy will be a “reverse” drive-thru in that the cars will drive by the building such that the pharmacy window will be on the passenger side of the vehicle and the driver will interact with the pharmacy through a pneumatic tube.  A reverse drive-thru was chosen based on safety concerns and traffic flow patterns within the parking lot.

The grocery store is open 24/7 but the pharmacy will have the following hours:  Weekdays 9am – 9pm; Saturday 9am – 7pm; and Sunday 10am – 4pm.  The drive-thru lane is planned for the south side of the building (the side facing KFC and Wendy’s).  The application can be reviewed here (PDF).  Farm Fresh is scheduled to go before the Planning Commission on October 25, 2012 which will make a recommendation to City Council regarding the drive-thru application.  If approved, construction is expected to begin within 4-6 weeks of approval and construction time is approximately 3 weeks.

Additionally, Farm Fresh is in talks with their landlord regarding parking lot improvements.  The current parking lot is an old concrete lot and it is beginning to settle and crack.  The appearance of the lot, because of its age, could stand to be improved.  The preliminary plan is to overlay the parking lot with asphalt and increase the height to the level of the interior of the store.  The height increase will enable Farm Fresh to do away with the need for handicapped ramps.

At this time there is no time frame available on the parking lot improvements but the interior renovations are on-time and slated to be complete by November 1, 2012.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2012 at 3:48 pm and is filed under economic development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.