Sprouts Farmers Market coming to Middletown

Sprouts Farmers Market plans to open its second Delaware store in Middletown. | PHOTO COURTESY OF SPROUTS

MIDDLETOWN – Sprouts Farmers Market, the natural and organic food grocer, will follow Target as a tenant of the new Northside Shopping Center in Middletown.

The Phoenix-based company told Delaware Business Times that it plans to open its second Delaware location by the second quarter of 2025. Developer Louis Ramunno told DBT that the store could open sooner though, if construction progresses faster.

“Sprouts is obviously a premier, national organic-oriented grocer. So, we’re really excited to have them in the mix,” he said.

Developer Louis Ramunno said that there are leases in the works with other major brands at the Northside Shopping Center. | MAP COURTESY OF METRO COMMERCIAL

Sprouts opened its first store in Delaware in 2020 adjacent to the Concord Mall near the Pennsylvania border off U.S. Route 202. The Middletown space would appear to be a slightly smaller footprint than the roughly 30,000-square-foot location opened there.

The announcement of Target’s arrival in the last year has driven interest from others to locate in the new shopping center. They would join a Dash-In gas station nearing an opening and an existing Popeye’s, Burger King and independent stores in a strip mall. Ramunno said that the three other inline retail locations with Target and Sprouts are already working through draft leases too.

“I can’t identify some of the other inline tenants just yet, but they’re all high-quality national brands,” he said.

While the rainy summer has delayed some progress on the new 147,000-square-foot anchor Target store, Ramunno said that a summer of 2024 opening is still possible. The company, which acquired the 13-acre parcel in January, expects to get its builder on-site by the end of August, he added.

Harkening to its farm-stand heritage, Sprouts features an open layout with fresh produce at the heart of the store and has a wide assortment of organic, plant-based and gluten-free foods.

The Phoenix-based company has about 380 locations in 23 states, although they are primarily located on the West Coast and in the Southwest. When it opened in Wilmington, it initially hired about 140 full- and part-time positions.

Sprouts has grown quickly in recent years as the demand for natural food grocers has increased, also leading to the growth of competing brands like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, of which the former has a store in nearby Glen Mills, Pa., and the latter has stores in north Wilmington and Christiana.

Neither have ventured to the booming Middletown market, but Weis Markets recently announced plans to open a 64,000-square-foot store just to the north near the Village of Bayberry community. Middletown already has a crowded grocery market with Walmart, Acme, Giant, Food Lion, Aldi and Lidl.