Getting the pig back home
They say it takes a village. This month, Crestline Village will prove just that.
More than two years after its beloved Piggly Wiggly shuttered its doors for the last time on Nov. 2, 2013, a new chapter in Crestline Pig history will be written: The brand-new 18,000-square-foot Crestline Piggly Wiggly will finally open its doors.
As the village can attest, bringing the store back wasn’t easy. There were countless hours-long public meetings, rezoning talks, incentive agreements and, most recently, even an intentionally set fire. But now, it won’t be long before Mountain Brook’s residents and Pig-lovers alike can once again walk the aisles of their favorite neighborhood grocery store.
The setbacks will all seem like a distant memory soon, when the automatic doors slide open just across the street from where the original Pig once stood.
The people’s pig
As soon as rumors about the impending close began to circulate in 2013, it was clear Crestline residents wouldn’t let it go without a fight.
Resident Kathryn Corey said she remembers the day she heard the news like it was yesterday.
“My phone lit up one morning with a call from my sister-in-law,” Corey said. “Ms. Arrelia [the well known Arrelia Callins, a Piggly Wiggly cashier for more than 25 years] had told her that the store might be closing. She called me because she knew how much I loved that grocery store.”
The phone calls just kept coming in that morning in the summer of 2013, Corey said
Before long, rumors spread like wildfire online. On the Facebook group Save the Crestline Pig, chatter quickly picked up that the village’s lone grocery store was on the verge of packing up its boxes and vacating its space at 93 Euclid Ave.
Negotiations between the Scott family, who own the retail space, and Andy Virciglio, who leased the space for the Piggly Wiggly, weren’t panning out.
As word got out, thousands of Mountain Brook residents sprang into action.
More than 2,800 people “liked” the Save the Crestline Pig Facebook page just hours after it was created. Over time, the site grew to have more than 5,000 followers.
A few days after the first news stories about the store’s rumored closing hit the press, a standing-room only crowd of Piggly Wiggly supporters filled the public meeting room at Emmet O’Neal Library on June 10, 2013.
“I have no idea how many people were there, but it was obvious I wasn’t alone in my concern for losing a cornerstone of the community,” said Corey, who helped organize the meeting. “Not only from a convenience standpoint, but in every way. The Pig was part of the community, from the friendships we had with all the employees to the sense of community we would feel just by visiting the store.”
Hundreds of Mountain Brook residents spilled out of the meeting room, lining the walls three-people deep as a sign of solidarity with their favorite Pig.
Amy Rainer, a third-grade teacher at Crestline Elementary at the time, also had her students take part in the campaign to save the Pig. She had her class both write letters to the Mountain Brook City Council and make posters about the Pig that were eventually hung throughout the village.
“I had been shopping there for nearly 10 years,” Rainer said. “My students had never known a Crestline without their Pig.”
Despite the entire community’s efforts, the Pig would not live to see a new year.
When Virciglio issued a statement announcing the store’s closing, the community once again did not just step aside.
Determined to close the chapter of their lives that was the Piggly Wiggly on a happy note, the community held a “Party at the Pig” in November 2013, during which they thanked store employees and chanted “Long live the Pig!” as they stood in line to fill their plates with barbecue and sides.
In the sunshine, packed into the parking lot of their favorite store, customers embraced employees and exchanged their favorite Pig-related memories. In a final show of support, the Crestline community distributed the $15,240 it collectively raised for the store’s 60 departing employees.
The Pig, revived
Efforts to bring the Pig back began almost immediately after it closed its doors, though it took some time to get those plans in order.
“When the Pig left, I don’t think anyone anticipated the level of response by the community,” Crestline resident Elisabeth Lyman said.
Lyman was among the first to get involved in the quest to both save and bring back the Crestline Pig. She pleaded early on with the Council to try and do something to save the community store.
“We all used to take the Pig for granted,” she said. “We didn’t realize what we had until the threat of it being gone was upon us. It was just like that old song, ‘You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone.”’
Lyman said it was the community’s outcry that eventually got everyone’s attention.
In February 2014, Retail Specialists presented preliminary plans that called for the store to move into what was at the time the CVS Pharmacy property as well as additional property on Vine Street.
Though that plan never panned out, the team behind it — Andy and Stanley Virciglio, owners of the former Crestline store, and Naseem Ajlouny and family, partners in the River Run store — remained committed.
Preliminary details for a second plan, which was eventually approved, first came to light with minimal details during a June 23 pre-Council meeting.
Months later, nearly a year to the day the Crestline Pig closed, the Council held a public hearingNov. 24, 2014, to consider the first steps in reviving the Pig. The Ajlouny and Virciglio family members teamed up with Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood architects, as well as construction firm Brasfield & Gorrie, to present the plans.
In order to accommodate the Pig, the Council had to vote on whether to rezone three parcels of land along Vine Street, a plan that had already been approved by the Planning Commission. Despite a large public showing and a nearly two-and-a-half-hour presentation, the Council voted to delay a decision on the rezoning after it decided the public deserved more time to review the latest plans.
It wasn’t until nearly a month later — Dec. 16 — that the Council approved both the rezoning and an incentive agreement to bring the Piggly Wiggly back.
The Council voted unanimously to approve the rezoning ordinance and an economic incentive agreement that gave the developer, Ajlouny Investments, LLC, a share of sales tax and non-educational ad valorem revenue. The lots were owned by different individuals, each of whom had applied for rezoning. In order to accommodate the Pig, all three sites, which housed the Scout House, Please Reply and the Early Learning Center, were rezoned to a “Local Business District” to allow for commercial development.
All three businesses have since relocated.
According to the plan’s details, the city agreed to paid Ajlouny $1.2 million for improvements to parking areas, access roads and to the area in general once the work was complete. In turn, Ajlouny would convey both an improved parking lot parcel and the Regions Bank access parcel — connecting the Piggly Wiggly to Church Street — to the city.
The city also agreed to share sales tax revenues with the developer either up to $4 million or for a period of 20 years, whichever occurs first. Ajlouny will receive 75 percent of sales taxes for the first five years of the store's existence and then split revenues equally with the city at 50 percent. Each year the Pig’s retail sales exceed $17.5 million, the proposed agreement would also allow for a property tax abatement on noneducational ad valorem taxes up to 15 years.
The incentive agreement is similar to others between the city and developments such as Publix on Overton Road and Piggly Wiggly on River Run and Lane Parke.
Construction finally began during the summer of 2015 and was projected to take eight months to complete. Despite the progress, unforeseen events delayed the projected April 2016 opening.
During his Jemison Award acceptance speech at the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce luncheon Jan. 14, 2016, Brasfield & Gorrie Chairman Miller Gorrie said a fire put construction back by approximately a month. The fire, he said, caused damage to the store’s light fixtures among other things.
“We will eventually get there,” he said at the time.
According to surveillance footage shared via the Mountain Brook Police Department’s Facebook page, the fire appears to have been intentionally set at about 9:25 p.m. Jan. 11. Surveillance footage captured four suspects in the store’s vicinity who later entering the building.
MBPD announced Jan. 20 it had identified and questioned four juvenile males suspected of intentionally setting the fire. Police Chief Ted Cook said the department could not release more information about the suspects because they are juveniles. The department did, however, file delinquency petitions with the Jefferson County Family Court in January, he said.
Long live the Pig
Don’t expect Crestline’s new Piggly Wiggly to resemble the old store. This one, Virciglio said, will be “bigger and better.”
The building has some 28,250 square feet of gross floor area. By contrast, the old store had about 11,400 square feet of retail space and 3,600 square feet of storage space. The parking lot will also be more expansive. A total of 90 parking spaces surround the store, doubling the old store’s 45 parking places.
The interior will feature reclaimed wood, broader aisles, expanded product selections and unique offerings. The store will have its own wine section, complete with wine barrels selected by the owners and chandeliers. The expanded beer section will include even more craft selections and a growler bar. The deli will have salad and soup bars and even a milkshake bar. The meat and fish section will feature not only certified Angus beef and a larger fresh, never-frozen fish selection, but an aged-meat cooler as well. The store’s LED lights and completely enclosed coolers will prove more energy efficient, as will the two sets of double doors at the entrance.
But some things, to the delight of Pig aficionados, will remain the same.
“Ms. Arrelia will be back,” Virciglio said of the longtime community friend. “You better believe she will be.”
Virciglio said several other former Crestline Pig employees, many of whom had been working at the Homewood store, will also be back.
“There will be many smiling faces returning that the neighborhood will recognize,” he said.
Along with their favorite employees, customers can also expect to see the return of locally sourced products, food from local restaurants and of course, the charm of its favorite neighborhood store.
“We can’t wait for them to be back home,” Corey said, “just down the street.”