Hampden Giant Prepares for Opening

Giant, which is moving its store from the Rotunda to the a shopping center in the 1000 block of W. 41st Street, is getting ready to open at the end of the month.

The store will have a soft opening at the new location on March 29 and will have a ribbon cutting at 6 p.m., according to the Baltimore Messenger.

Giant formerly announced its decision to leave the Rotunda shopping center in January.

In conjunction with the announcement that Giant was leaving the center Hekemian & Co., who owns the Rotunda, announced plans to restart a long delayed renovation.

Hekemian & Co. has been planning to reshape the Rotunda into a mixed-use out door mall since 2005. Those plans were delayed after the economic collapse of 2008. But Chris Bell, senior vice president of Hekemian & Co., said that Giant’s indecision about whether it wanted to stay at the Rotunda helped delay renovations.

But now that Giant has moved Bell said they hope to break ground on the $150 million renovation by 2013. The renovations proposed at the Rotunda are scaled back from what was originally proposed. The plans no longer include a 22-story high rise or an outdoor grocery store.

In fact any grocer that is brought to the Rotunda will be limited in size to 20,000 square feet as part of an agreement that allowed Giant out of its lease at the Rotunda. The agreement is necessary because Giant could have kept its space at the Rotunda vacant after it moved.

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