Giant Eagle Hammers Out 4-Store Deal With Ace Hardware

Giant Eagle will this summer add store-within-a-store Ace Hardware departments in four of its flagship locations. The move marks the first development of its kind in several years for the Pittsburgh-based multiformat retailer, which will devote an entire section of the stores to showcase the home improvement products.

Giant Eagle said it will soon begin remodeling the four units—which are located in the suburban Pittsburgh communities of Allegheny Township, Irwin, Ross Township and Shaler—to make way for an array of home improvement offerings for the Ace Hardware departments, the first of which is set to open by summer.

“It is imperative that we at Giant Eagle continue to innovate both within and outside of our supermarkets to succeed in our increasingly competitive food retail environment,” Giant Eagle spokesman Dan Donovan told WGB in a statement. “Ace’s experience with store-within-a-store concepts at other retailers and shared commitment to quality, service, and convenience make them a natural fit for Giant Eagle.” 

The grocery channel has become an important one for Ace Hardware, which bills itself as the world’s largest retailer-owned hardware cooperative. Speculation swirled earlier this year about a potential deal between the Kroger Co. and Ace, the latter of which operates both store-within-a-store configurations and adjacent storefronts for its retail food partners, which include Buehler's, Coborn's, Mollie Stone's, Niemann Foods Inc. and Ramey Supermarkets, among others.

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