We produce the trade area research and sales forecasts that move a grocery deal forward in Ohio — whether you're a retailer evaluating a new market, a landlord trying to attract a grocer to a center, or a municipality recruiting investment to a corridor. Our methodology is the same one major grocers use to underwrite multi-million-dollar new-store decisions, and we have used it to support feasibility work across every major Ohio metro and a long list of secondary markets.
A grocery feasibility study is not a demographic report. The data you can pull from a five-mile radius around a site tells you almost nothing about whether a grocer will perform there. What matters is how the trade area actually behaves — where households shop today, what they spend, how barriers and travel patterns shape the trade area boundary, and how a new store would redistribute existing sales.
Our methodology starts in the field. We physically visit competitor stores in the trade area, talk with produce, meat, and deli staff, and back into a confirmed sales volume for every relevant competitor. That field intelligence is the foundation. A grocery sales forecast built without field-verified competitor volumes is guessing, and grocers know it.
From there, we build a gravity model — the same modeling platform that most major grocers (roughly 85 to 90 percent of the industry) use internally — calibrated to the field data. We balance the model against current trade area behavior, then run forecasts against the candidate site. The output is a forecast that has historically run within 5 percent of actual store performance once a location opens. That is the accuracy bar grocers operate to, because their margins demand it.
National and regional grocers use our work when they want an independent read on a candidate site, when their internal forecast needs to be defended to a site committee, or when they are evaluating a market they have not operated in before. Ohio has distinct grocery dynamics — the Kroger market share, the Meijer footprint, the recent moves by off-price and limited-assortment formats — and the right feasibility work accounts for all of it.
If you own a center in Ohio and you are pitching a grocery anchor, a feasibility study is the difference between a leasing email and a peer conversation. We have helped landlords move from chasing the wrong grocer to landing the right one — including a documented case where a developer pivoted from an unviable Kroger relocation to a Sprouts and Grocery Outlet positioning that fit the trade area.
Ohio municipalities pursuing grocery recruitment use feasibility work to support investment cases, justify incentive packages, and put a credible forecast in front of grocers' real estate teams. When a city walks into a grocer meeting with a third-party sales forecast in hand, the conversation moves from cold pitch to qualified opportunity.
New shopping center development almost always lives or dies on the grocery anchor. We have helped developers across Ohio underwrite anchor feasibility before site control, refine site plans around forecast outputs, and pitch viable grocers with research-grade proof in hand.
Ohio's grocery sector is in active reshuffle. Kroger remains dominant in the southern half of the state and parts of the central corridor, but Meijer's footprint, Aldi's continued expansion, and growing pressure from off-price formats like Grocery Outlet have shifted the competitive picture in ways that demographic data alone cannot capture. The same trade area that looked saturated three years ago may now have a real gap for a specialty grocer or a hard-discount entrant.
We have seen multiple Ohio corridors where landlords were chasing the wrong grocer — pursuing a national name that would have cannibalized existing sister stores — when the right move was a smaller-footprint specialty operator or an off-price grocer that could capture incremental household share without triggering a competitive response. The feasibility work surfaces that distinction before the leasing time gets sunk.
A standard Ohio grocery feasibility study takes one to three weeks depending on complexity and the number of competitor sites we need to field-verify. Portfolio-wide work or multi-site comparison studies take longer. We scope every engagement against the deal timeline.
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Kevin brings over 35 years of real estate research and site selection experience to the CRE 360 team. His expertise in the grocery industry began in college at Lucky Foods in Southern California. After earning a master’s degree, he joined American Stores in Buena Park, CA, as a Real Estate Research Analyst. Following the consolidation, he moved to Salt Lake City as a Senior Analyst. After American Stores was acquired by Albertsons, Kevin managed the Drug Store team in site research in Boise, ID. His REIT experience started in Houston, TX, with Weingarten Realty Investors, where he held positions as New Development Director and Director of Research during his nearly 17-year tenure. He later joined MTN Advisors, overseeing site location research for grocers and retailers. Throughout his career, Kevin has collaborated with grocers, shopping center owners, developers, and brokers to meet their research needs. At CRE 360 Partners, he leads a team of analysts to support clients in achieving growth. Kevin holds a master’s degree in Geography from California State University Long Beach and has been a member of the ICSC North American Research Group since 2017.
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