Amazon Fresh will no longer be part of the Harford Mall redevelopment, as Amazon announced on Tuesday the closure of all Amazon Fresh and Go locations. Developers of the mall are searching for a new tenant to fill its space.

The grocer was one of the first tenants to join the Harford Mall redevelopment project after Sears closed in 2019.

In May, the Georgia-based developer leading phase 3 of the mall’s redevelopment, SJC Ventures, outlined the third phase of the project, which planned to turn a portion of the mall into a $100 million open-air shopping center, anchored by a 35,000-square-foot Whole Foods Market.

After plans were announced, Bel Air’s town administrator, Edward Hopkins, told The Baltimore Sun that Amazon Fresh would still be coming to the mall, but that the company had been going through “several redesigns” to find a business model that would be successful.

Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market in 2017 and said Tuesday that it is increasing investments in physical stores that resonate with customers and closing Amazon-branded physical stores because they ultimately hadn’t “yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion.”

The company said that since Whole Foods Market has seen “strong success” with more than 40% sales growth since Amazon acquired it in 2017, Amazon is planning to further invest in Whole Foods by opening more than 100 new stores in the next few years.

Despite the closure of the store’s physical locations, customers can still shop Amazon Fresh online in available areas and have groceries delivered.

With the former Sears location now available, Bel Air Public Information Officer David Anderson said developers will look for another tenant to fill the space.

The four-phase redevelopment project started with converting the former Sears into an Amazon Fresh for phase 1. In phase 2, developers will convert the mall’s parking lot that backs up to Boulton Street into a 33,200-square-foot, four-story parking garage, two four-story apartment buildings, two residential courtyards and 12,000 square feet of “amenities,” and phase 3 will include partial demolition of the mall to allow for the open-air shopping center and include Whole Foods occupying the former Macy’s location.

Phase 4 will feature two buildings — one that’s designed to house a restaurant and another for a soft goods, retail, or fast casual dining tenant — according to Christopher Mudd, an attorney who represents SJC Ventures, the contract purchaser and developer of phase 4.

The restaurant building, called building 400, will be approximately 5,256 square feet; building 500 will be 6,407 square feet. Mudd said decorative fencing would be placed around each building, but no tenants are secured for the spaces.

All phases have been approved by the Town of Bel Air along with a 12-month extension for phase 2. The second phase’s lead developer, CDP North LLC, requested the extension due to the complicated nature of the project. CDP North’s original site plan was approved in January 2024 and had an expiration date of January 2026. With the extension, the expiration is pushed to January 2027.

Shaela Foster contributed to this article. 

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