South Columbus Piggly Wiggly closes after 45 years

After more than 45 years in operation, the Piggly Wiggly grocery store on Victory Drive closed last week, said JTM Inc. Chief Information Officer Keith Milligan.

The store, which opened in 1971, was located in Heritage Corners Shopping Center at 3759 Victory Drive. It is one of two stores in south Columbus that is owned by Phenix City-based wholesale grocer JTM. The store that is about a mile away at 1807 South Lumpkin Road and adjacent to the Oakland Park neighborhood will remain open, Milligan said.

Monday afternoon vendors and employees were busy removing the remaining merchandise out of the store.

“We made the decision to close it about three weeks ago and did it last week,” Milligan said. “We began moving merchandise out the first of last week.”

The Victory Drive store is less than a half a mile from the new Wal-Mart that opened in June of last year. The Wal-Mart, which also has a grocery, impacted the Piggly Wiggly’s business, Milligan said.

“Both of our stores in that area have been hurt by the Wal-Mart,” Milligan said. “As we looked at it, we own the property for our South Lumpkin store and it made more sense to keep that one open. That store is doing well.”

Milligan said they were prepared for the impact of the Wal-Mart, which is on the former site of Baker High School.

“We all know that Wal-Mart creates a retail crater around it,” he said.

Vincent Merkle, Atlanta-based property manager and leasing broker for shopping center owner Traffic Circle LP, said the closing of the Piggly Wiggly came as a surprise. It is the third major tenant to vacate the center since 2015. Radio Shack was closed as part of a nationwide bankruptcy of the electronics chain and SunTrust closed its branch in the center.

Merkle could not talk about the lease agreement with JTM.

“We have a confidentiality clause,” he said. “We can’t disclose the terms of the lease.”

The South Lumpkin store opened in 1993 and it has outlasted a Winn-Dixie that was in the same area. The Winn-Dixie closed in November 2014 after 20 years of operation.

Still, it was a difficult decision for family-owned JTM to make the decision to close the Heritage Corners location.

“I was in the original stock crew for that store in 1971,” Milligan said. “That store goes way back. It was probably the fourth or fifth store we opened.”

JTM, founded by Milligan’s father, Tommy Milligan, now owns and operates 18 Piggly Wiggly stores throughout the Chattahoochee Valley.

This story was originally published February 6, 2017 at 2:41 PM with the headline "South Columbus Piggly Wiggly closes after 45 years."