Hy-Vee expanding into Kentucky, announces Louisville store

Less than one month after announcing its first Indiana store, Hy-Vee on Tuesday said it is expanding into Kentucky, with plans for its first store in the state to be located in Louisville.

Hy-Vee has secured approximately 12 acres at the SouthPointe Commons retail and lifestyle center, located at 7405 Bardstown Road in Louisville. Plans call for an approximately 150,000-square-foot store with tentative plans to open in 2023.

“As Hy-Vee continues to grow and evolve, we have so much to offer consumers across the U.S. that we knew it was time to expand our footprint even further,” said Randy Edeker, chairman and CEO of West Des Moines, Iowa-based Hy-Vee. “As customers’ shopping habits change and their needs evolve, we have services and offerings that we believe will bring an entirely new retail experience to those in Kentucky.”

The store will be one of the company’s first locations to open in the southeast. Recently the company announced that it would be expanding its footprint into several new states, including Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama. It currently operates more than 285 stores across eight Midwestern states.

In late January, the retailer announced plans to enter Indiana with a massive store in Zionsville, a suburb just north of Indianapolis. At the time, Hy-Vee said it aims to open an approximately 150,000-square-foot store, including a pharmacy, at the southwest corner of Whitestown Parkway and S. County Road 700 E. in Zionsville. Hy-Vee is finalizing plans to secure about 26 acres at the Indiana site and conducting due diligence for the location.

Related:Hy-Vee announces first Indiana store

According to a report in December in the Des Moines Register, Hy-Vee is slated to build a new distribution center to supply seven new stores in Indiana, Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky opening in 2023, part of more than 20 new stores expected to open over the next four years.

Besides the Zionsville, Ind., and Louisville stores, other new locations include four stores in Tennessee (two in the Nashville area and one apiece in Knoxville and Memphis) and one each in in Huntsville, Ala., and Louisville, Ky., the Des Moines Register reported. The expansion would stretch Hy-Vee’s market area from states on the Canadian border (Minnesota) to the Gulf Coast (Alabama) and extend the retailer’s footprint into the Southeast.