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Grocery wars? Aldi wants to build a store in Menomonee Falls on land owned by Woodman's near a Sam's Club

Joe Taschler
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Aldi wants to build a store in Menomonee Falls near a Woodman's and a Sam's Club.

Aldi, the German-based discount grocery chain, is proposing to build a store adjacent to — and on land owned by — Janesville-based discount grocer Woodman's in Menomonee Falls.

According to documents filed with the Menomonee Falls Plan Commission, Aldi Inc. wants to build a 22,399-square-foot grocery store on an outlot adjacent to the Woodman's store near Interstate 41 and 124th Street.

The Aldi would be south of the Woodman's store. Employee-owned Woodman's owns the land where the proposed Aldi would be built.

There is a Sam's Club store across 124th Street from the Woodman's. Sam's Club stores are owned by Walmart. 

The Woodman’s opened in Menomonee Falls in 2010. The property contains a 24-hour grocery store, a Woodman's convenience store and fueling station, and a standalone self-service car wash.

At the time that Woodman’s built the grocery store, two outlots were created on the south end of the property that were reserved for future development.

Neither site has been developed.

According to documents filed with Menomonee Falls, Aldi has offered to purchase the  eastern outlot from Woodman’s for the new store.

Aldi and Woodman's both operate in the discount grocery realm and have earned reputations as some of the most price-competitive grocers in the industry. 

While both do business in the same category, the two store chains differ in their business models, with Woodman's operating massive stores — the Menomonee Falls store is nearly 240,000 square feet — and Aldi operating on a significantly smaller footprint. Aldi stores are typically 10,000 to 11,000 square feet. 

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Woodman's stores are typically open 24 hours a day, while Aldi stores are typically open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Aldi is in the midst of an expansion in the U.S. A year ago, it announced plans to invest $3.4 billion to expand the number of stores in the U.S. to 2,500 by 2020, up from roughly 1,750 now. 

Aldi has 71 stores in Wisconsin.

Representatives for both companies could not immediately be reached for comment.

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