Wegmans Supermarket construction site, 651 Connecticut Ave, Norwalk, Conn. Monday, September 16, 2024.

NORWALK — Connecticut’s first Wegmans store still needs to hire over 300 employees with about half a year left before a summer 2025 opening.

Despite facing local grocery competition from Stamford’s incoming Whole Foods and a Stew Leonard’s , Shoprite, CTown, Stop and Shop in Norwalk, the Wegmans store manager said the location is poised for success.

“I think there is a lot of competition nearby and I think that it'll be good for everybody with a new store coming in (to) just give our shoppers something new to look forward to,” said Manager Emily Gee. “There's a lot of things we take into consideration before we place a new store and, geographically, this is an area that we've been looking at for a while. It checks a lot of boxes, so we're just excited to be here.”

One of those boxes is space, Wegmans Senior Public Relations Coordinator Marcie Rivera said, noting that her company’s grocery stores are “rather large.”

Crews began site demolition last summer and construction began first for the two-story parking garage before moving on to the 91,000-square-foot store ahead of the summer 2025 opening.

The other factor in selecting the store location is its proximity to Interstate 95.

“The location is nice because it's right off a major highway,” Rivera said. “You can get to it pretty easily. We also like to be able to be seen from some of those major highways so that people can find our store.”

The store’s main property, at 47 Richards Ave., is just off Connecticut Avenue and its bustling retail corridor. Wegmans bought 677 and 651 Connecticut Ave., allowing shoppers to access the store from two spots on Connecticut Avenue. Gee said the "great location" is convenient for shoppers running errands along the highway and other Connecticut Avenue stores.

It will share the corridor with some of the newest business to come to Connecticut Avenue: a Shangri-La Dispensary that also benefits from the corridor's strong retail presence, its CEO said.

The supermarket will need hundreds of staff members to meet the needs of its customers coming from the highway and retail hubs along Connecticut Avenue. Hiring efforts including walk-in interviews and two events in September and October have brought the store about 150 employees already , the representatives said.

“Right now we're focusing on our perishable and culinary side of the store, because some of those positions take a little bit,” Gee said. “They require more teaching and skill and recipes and things like that, so that's what we're currently really sourcing for.”

The store still needs 350 jobs filled before hopefully opening in early summer, Gee said. The company aims to hire locally and support the job market in the Norwalk area.

Hiring “good people,” though, is the ultimate determination in hiring for the family-owned and operated business.

“It all starts with our values and that's really what we look for,” Gee said. “We can teach you how to ice a cake, cut a fish, but you can't really teach somebody to be a good person and (to) want to help others, and we think that's really what sets us apart from others.”