May 30, 2024

The owners of Pomegranate Market hope to bring a grocery store downtown that will be inspired by some of the best in class in its industry.

The Sioux Falls-based grocer held a ceremonial groundbreaking today at Cherapa Place, where it will begin building out part of The Clark building for the new store.

“What excites me the most is to deliver the awesome grocery store everyone in Sioux Falls wants,” co-owner Craig Snyder said in a statement.

“We’re going to take the original Pomegranate Market to the next level and then take the new store beyond that because we’re designing it to meet the unique needs of downtown shoppers.”

The original Pomegranate Market at 4815 S. Louise Ave. opened 13 years ago.

Snyder and son Jonah and son-in-law Gabe Messler will own both locations. They’ve been visiting West Coast grocery stores to gain inspiration and ideas for the new downtown Sioux Falls store.

“These stores are best in class and way outperform Whole Foods in customer experience,” Snyder said. “We’re trying to take the Whole Foods concept to the next level like some of these stores on the West Coast. I initially took some convincing, but I now believe in downtown and believe we have enough of a pull to support this next step for Pomegranate.”

The new location reflects what the community has been looking for downtown, said Jeff Scherschligt, co-owner of Cherapa Place family-owned developer Pendar Properties.

“Our vision was to carry out what the community wanted, and we’ve worked very hard to make that happen,” he said. “We really pursued a downtown grocery-deli that can bring healthy food, convenience to people and that really urban feel.”

The store will offer “quick food for the lunch crowd, the ability for all these commercial (tenants) to pick up grab-and-go meals and provide a great convenience to all the apartment residents at Cherapa and the surrounding downtown,” Scherschligt said.

Deciding on downtown

The Snyders put significant consideration into their decision to open downtown.

While an initial market analysis pointed toward the southeast for their second location, “Jeff came to me and said, ‘What about downtown?'” Snyder said. “I said, ‘We’re not looking at downtown.’ I told Jeff ‘no’ three times, and the last time was ‘definitely not.’ I love it that Jeff didn’t take ‘no’ for answer.”

When Jonah Snyder visited Cherapa Place late last year as a member of the SiouxFalls.Business 30 Under 30, Scherschligt brought up the subject with the next-generation owner.

“Jeff came over and shook my hand and said, ‘Do you think Craig would be annoyed if I sent one more offer?'” Jonah Snyder said.

“I love being downtown. When I was younger, it was kind of scary, and people didn’t go downtown. And now it’s a totally different environment. People my age — I’m turning 30 in a month — like to go spend nights and weekends downtown, and increasingly I’ve been doing this.”

By locating downtown, there’s minimal chance of drawing sales away from the first store in southwest Sioux Falls, they determined.

“I started to switch my vision,” Craig Snyder said. “I like to bike the bike trails, so I rode there and drove up on the ramp and looked around, and pretty soon I said, ‘I kind of get where Craig Lloyd and Jeff and Anne (Haber of Pendar Properties) and their team are getting invested in downtown. I started feeling it for the first time. Jeff’s given us a great offer, so I said, ‘Let’s do this and be all-in and really do it right.'”

His son convinced him that “if we’re going to do it, we don’t want it to be like (the original) Pomegranate, so he went to the West Coast and started looking at stores.”

Jonah Snyder, who grew up checking groceries and sweeping floors at Pomegranate Market as a teen, had ideas about how the store could evolve, but “it was clear it was maybe a little ahead of its time,” he said. “Sioux Falls or South Dakota at the time might be five to 10 years behind the coasts on the trends, and that seems to be the case for organic and natural foods. But there’s a demand for it now, and Pomegranate One has been coming into its own, and during the pandemic, a lot of customers discovered the brand and the location.”

There’s “significant demand for organic food, and we don’t feel like there’s market saturation,” he continued. “Whole Foods hasn’t come to town, so now is the time to establish ourselves as the premier organic and natural food store in Sioux Falls. You don’t need Whole Foods because you have the local option.”

While still drawing on Pomegranate Market’s niche in organic and natural foods, the concept taking shape for downtown draws influences from niche West Coast grocers such as Erewhon, a California certified organic retailer with a large following, albeit pricing that would need to be adjusted for the Sioux Falls market.

“It’s just a really cool place, and what stood out is it’s an experience,” Jonah Snyder said.

“You’re going to a grocery store like that because … you prioritize healthy and organic eating. In LA, it’s about walking around with an Erewhon cup for status, but (it’s) the concepts of delicious prepared foods, healthy foods you feel good about eating at a reasonable price in a downtown setting.”

Photo of Erewhon

They also looked at PCC Community Markets, an organic grocer in Seattle.

Photo of PCC Community Markets

Both concepts “have a die-hard following — customers who love and only shop there, and they have a really strong brand, and both stand above the rest with their deli, and that’s why we wanted to check them out,” Jonah Snyder said.

Photo of Erewhon

One idea that’s already translating to their downtown store: valet parking. Pomegranate Market plans to offer it as an option to shoppers.

“I don’t want to have a driver check out the new Pomegranate and think there’s nowhere to park,” Snyder said. “We’ll park the car for them in the ramp or wherever we have spots, and there are plenty of spots we can use.”

There’s also “a lot of free customer parking,” Scherschligt added. “Everyone struggles with the concept of parking downtown, and we’re going to have a lot of free parking spaces right around the Cherapa development. That’s a commitment because parking is expensive, but we feel so strongly it’s in the DNA of South Dakotans that it takes that to get people down there and experience it.”

The Cherapa Place parking ramp also has more than 700 spaces that will be available nights and weekends and will provide direct access to the development, he said.

The Snyders “are good business people,” Scherschligt said. “They know they have to continue to evolve and improve, and they’re reaching out to the best in their industry. It’s what the community has been looking for, and it fit what Cherapa is trying to deliver to the community with live-work-play.”

Next steps

Pomegranate Market plans to build about a 13,000-square-foot store within The Clark, which is slightly larger than the original one. There will be produce and grocery staples, with a larger deli and prepared foods area, in addition to indoor-outdoor seating for coffee, breakfast or lunch.

Photo of Erewhon

“We recognize that the downtown professional or downtown resident is looking for something that’s a little more quick,” Jonah Snyder said. “Store one is really strong in our center store grocery and produce, and we’ll still do all that downtown, but we want to take our catering offering and deli prepared foods to the next level. I’m super-excited. I wish we were opening a month from now instead of a year from now.”

Photo of Erewhon

While design is just beginning, the plan is to open by mid-2025.

“Building three (The Clark) was really designed to hold something like this, and it’s been a lynchpin for the development,” said Anne Haber, co-owner of Pendar Properties. “We’re really focusing on retail and trying to find good-quality tenants to be part of our whole design for the campus — people we know will be here for the long term. I can’t tell you how excited we are about Pomegranate and what they will bring to this campus.”

Pomegranate Market builds on recent retail activity in the Cherapa development, which has retail deals in process in all three new buildings.

The Bancorp Building, which includes offices and condominiums, includes wellness-focused business iv&co, which has opened, and fitness studio SISU Fit, which is under construction.