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A farm-to-market-style grocery plans to open its first Indiana store next week in Carmel.
Niemann Harvest Market is set to open Wednesday at the Merchants’ Square shopping center northwest of East 116th Street and Keystone Parkway. The grocery is owned by Quincy, Illinois-based Niemann Foods Inc.
The 75,000-square-foot store at 2140 E. 116th St. is taking over a space formerly occupied by a Marsh Supermarkets store that closed in 2017 when the entire grocery chain went out of business.
A grand opening event will be held May 18-19 with live entertainment from local musicians, according to a post on the store’s Facebook page. The store is currently hiring.
Niemann Foods Director of Consumer Affairs Gerry Kettler told IBJ last year that the store will sell both organic and traditional grocery items, and have a “full-service, chef-driven restaurant.”
Niemann Foods opened its first Harvest Market grocery store in 2016 in Champaign, Illinois, and a second location in 2020 in Springfield, Illinois.
Both stores offer a seafood and meat department, deli, dairy department with a variety of cheeses and in-house churned butter, coffee shop and an educational cooking area.
Shoppers at the Champaign and Springfield stores can eat at the Farmhouse Restaurant, which sells omelets and other breakfast foods, burgers, sandwiches, flatbread, pizza and sides.
Niemann Foods was founded in 1917 by Ferd Niemann Sr. and Steve Niemann. The company owns and operates more than 100 grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations and hardware stores in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri.
Its stores include Harvest Market, County Market, County Market Express, Cenex One-Stop, Haymakers, Ace Hardware, Pet Supplies Plus and Save-A-Lot.
The Merchants’ Square building served as a temporary home for the Carmel Clay Public Library for nearly two years between 2020 and 2022 while the library’s main branch underwent renovations.
Built in 1970 as a Target-anchored, enclosed mall, Merchants’ Square was redeveloped into an open-air center in the mid-1990s. The shopping center has experienced challenges over the years due to vacancies and the closure of the Marsh store in its anchor location along 116th Street.
Niemann Holdings LLC purchased the store’s five-acre property in November 2022, according to Hamilton County property records.
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It’ll be interesting to see how the newish Fresh Market on Rangeline reacts. They pulled out of Fishers shortly after Fresh Thyme opened and pulled away its customer base.
That’s good news for that neighborhood and the former Marsh location, but that’s a really saturated grocery market with multiple competitors within a mile, and probably a dozen competitors within 5 miles. I wonder how it will set itself apart from Whole Foods, Kroger, The Fresh Market, Market District, Fresh Thyme, Meijer, Needler’s Fresh Market, the other The Fresh Market, the other Whole Foods, Aldi, Walmart, Target, the other Kroger…
Hy-Vee is also opening up two locations soon, in Zionsville and Fishers.