Trader Joe's is one of the most popular grocery stores in America, offering unique foods for good prices, but customers nationwide have a serious bone to pick with the chain: parking.
Getting in and out of the Midtown Charlotte location isn't easy, and that's not limited to the Queen City. It's actually part of the Trader Joe's strategy. Let's connect the dots.
It turns out there's really no financial reason for Trader Joe's to make its parking lots any bigger. The company said its lots are smaller because the stores are smaller. The average Trader Joe's is around 10,000 square feet, compared to 50,000 square feet you typically see for supermarkets, like Publix, Harris Teeter or Food Lion.
Smaller stores mean smaller parking lots and that can actually lead to lower prices, experts say. In Charlotte, that's especially true. Parking spaces are considered prime real estate, and city leaders say the cost of building a single parking space in a parking deck is anywhere between $25,000 and $50,000 each.
And when businesses have a lot of parking, the cost of convenience gets passed down to shoppers.
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