The Edmondson Village Shopping Center is getting a new tenant that will further distance the neighboring communities from its status as a food desert.

ALDI, a discount grocery chain, has signed a lease to move into the West Baltimore complex, according to Lyneir Richardson, CEO of Chicago Trend, and Jeff Baehr, divisional president at ALDI.

The news comes shortly after the announcement that another grocery store, LA Mart, would fill in the vacant space left by Giant Food in the Edmondson Square Shopping Center next door.

The ALDI will fill in a portion of the Edmondson Village center that was damaged in a fire before the Chicago-based developer purchased it. Part of the site work will include building a foundation for ALDI, which will take up 23,000 square feet of the strip mall and begin development sometime next year.

“We had to spend an inordinate amount of time and a Herculean sales effort to be able to tell retailers that something new is happening here,” Richardson said.

Beyond making “headway on a development” in the shopping center, ALDI could not provide any additional information.

The Edmondson Village Shopping Center’s ALDI will be the sixth store location in Baltimore City.

Earlier this year, ALDI announced a $9 billion expansion plan that would add 800 additional stores nationwide over the next five years. ALDI, which prides itself on providing an “everyday low price,” usually has brands exclusive to their stores and a shopping cart system that requires dishing out a quarter that’s given back once the cart is returned.

ALDI is the first new tenant announced by Richardson since Chicago TREND purchased the property in August 2023. And the road to redevelopment wasn’t easy.

The historic shopping center and some neighboring land are under a 1945 covenant that restricted certain uses and development of the property. The developer had to gather a signatures from property owners to get it amended, which was a process Richardson said he’d never undertaken before.

Richardson commends Baltimore and the state of Maryland for being strong supporters as they worked to get the covenants amended and the shopping center on the road to redevelopment. The mayor’s office committed $8 million to the renovation in 2022. Mayor Brandon Scott considers ALDI’s arrival to be a “milestone” for the neighborhood.

“The news of ALDI’s lease and the possibility of more merchants to come is a strong signal about the bright future of this shopping center, and the corner we’re turning in West Baltimore overall,” he said.

Since the purchase, the shopping center received multiple improvements, including new lighting, facade repairs, a new roof and investment in security cameras, Richardson said. For years, the shopping center has grappled with drug activity.

Garrick Hines Sr., who lives behind the shopping center and tries to keep residents informed about it, thinks security should be a priority so there’s no “having to look over your shoulder and worry whether or not there will be some kind of threat because you want to shop in your own community.”

But he doesn’t believe securing the shopping center is a problem solved by money, but rather by having conversations about the overall goals and visions. Hines isn’t sure there will be another opportunity like this to extensively develop the shopping center.

“I want it [the shopping center] to be able to highlight in my community that we are resilient, we can adapt to change, we can work together and pave the way for long-lasting improvement,” Hines said.

Richardson said there will be more announcements to come for the shopping center and hopes to have a meeting with the community before the end of the year. He understands that the pace of development can seem slow and discouraging, but things are moving forward.

“We’re trying to keep people positive about the momentum without selling something that’s a dream,” Richardson said.