Continuing coverage Business expansion
UNION TWP. — After nearly two years of negotiations, planning and design, details are beginning to emerge about the newest location of Jungle Jim’s International Market.
The store, which replaces a bigg’s that closed in May 2010, is eyeing a late spring or early summer grand opening for its new site in near Interstate 275 and Ohio 32 in Union Twp., Clermont County, according to Phill Adams, director of development for Jungle Jim’s.
The new Eastgate store will occupy about 212,000 square feet of the 420,000 square foot shopping mall Jungle Jim’s now manages. In comparison, the Fairfield location is about 187,000 square feet.
The new location’s exterior will feature an old Kings Island monorail, which now rests on a 170-foot-long railroad bridge purchased at a Fairfield auction. Two gorilla statues will be attached to the building above the entry pointing into the entry for added pizzazz, Adams said. Grocery cart corrals under the monorail will resemble a railroad station.
Customers will find all the same grocery items available at the Fairfield location; however, Adams remained tight-lipped about aspects of the store’s interior, other than to say “it doesn’t look anything like Fairfield.”
“We are going to have registers,” he said, then laughed. “That’s about it. It’s going to be a really cool layout and it’s own unique personality, characteristics and flow.
“If you want to go to both stores, you’re going to have a wonderful experience in both.”
The new store will offer everything the Fairfield location does in terms of sensory overload, Adams said.
“Everything is going crazy in your body — smells, touch, feel, sight,” he said. “The same thing’s going to happen here. It’s going to blow your mind.”
In the meantime, design of the building continues with a tweak here and an adjustment there, Adams said.
“We’re into the final details. Now we’re into the cool stuff,” he said.
While he wouldn’t elaborate on every aspect of what that includes, he did confirm that a 4-foot-wide, 12-foot-long pirate ship will grace the Caribbean foods section of the store. “Every grocery store has a pirate ship in their Caribbean section, right?” Adams said.
In addition, a familiar attraction from the hot sauce section of the Fairfield store will get a new twist in the Eastgate location.
“We’ll have a fire truck, but we had to go beyond,” he said. “That’s kind of in our blood. We couldn’t stop at just the fire truck this time.”
Besides readying its own space, Jungle Jim’s also is working to lease out space in the mall. All current tenants will remain, including Rincon Mexicano, Fuji Steak House, Hobby Lobby and Receptions Banquet and Conference Center. The center’s second-run movie theater will switch to first-run movies.
Colonel De Gourmet Herbs & Spices, a Findlay Market business, is the only new Eastgate tenant Jungle Jim’s is able to disclose at this point, Adams said.
“The other ones we’re still waiting on permission to declare,” Adams said.
The center, which was 25 percent occupied when Jungle Jim’s announced it would move there, is projected to be 90 to 95 percent occupied by the time of the Eastgate location grand opening or shortly thereafter.
The new Jungle Jim’s will create between 350 to 400 new jobs, not including the 200 to 250 new jobs expected to be created from the stores that will fill the mall, Adams said. A job fair will take place one month before the store opens.
Adams said the new Jungle Jim’s won’t draw customers there away from the Fairfield location because it did not pull many customers from the region in the first place.
“When we had companies do studies on it, we were surprised,” he said. “We draw more customers from Indianapolis than we do from (the area surrounding) our Eastgate location.”
In addition, studies have indicated the store will draw customers from not only Louisville and Lexington, but West Virginia, a market that never ventured to the Fairfield location.
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