Kettering grocery store to close next month

Dayton.com stopped by the store, located at 2100 E. Whipp Road in the Oak Creek Plaza, on Tuesday morning and an employee was not able to go on record as to why Marc’s is closing. While our reporter was on site, the employee took two back-to-back calls from customers asking why the store is closing. She told the customers their lease is up.

We have reached out to Marc’s corporate office for additional information.

Gary Marritt, a Kettering resident who lives about 10 minutes away from the store, said he is sad to see the store close because he shops at Marc’s all the time.

“We don’t like it at all because they have really good prices,” Marritt said. “We get plants here and a lot of stuff cheaper than we can get anywhere else.”

He said they shop at Kroger and Meijer too, but use Marc’s for items they can’t get there. He added that the prices at Marc’s are typically cheaper.

When Marc’s opened the Kettering location in August 2018, the store was the company’s 59th Ohio store. Marc Glassman started his namesake in the Cleveland area in 1979 and expanded into Youngstown, Akron, Columbus and then the Dayton market.

The Kettering location was specifically attractive to Marc’s for several reasons, mainly population density, Ken Sustin, Marc’s corporate secretary that handles real estate previously said. When choosing a location, Marc’s executives drive to the market and evaluate the environment, competition, and traffic patterns.

The company’s research concluded that the area was underserviced, Sustin previously said.

When Kroger left this location in June 2017, residents grew uneasy about what would come of the building and how some residents without adequate transportation would get their groceries, Kettering’s former economic development manager Gregg Gorsuch previously said. The Kroger store closed once the company’s new store opened at 5400 Cornerstone N. Boulevard in Centerville.

The city also wanted another grocer to fill the space, so Gorsuch started working with the building’s broker, who was already looking for another grocery store.

Dayton.com has reached out to Big V Property Group, the commercial real estate company that manages Oak Creek Plaza, for comment.