New Hy-Vee Stores Planned for Cedar Rapids

October 7, 2004, WEST DES MOINES, IA - Officials with Hy-Vee, Inc. today announced plans to build a new Hy-Vee store in Cedar Rapids and relocate one of the company's Drug Town stores there to a new building.

Hy-Vee has completed the purchase of land at Northeast Edgewood Road and Collins Road from the Aegon Group and plans to build a new 78,000-square-foot supermarket there. The new store will be part of the North River Village development. Construction will begin this fall, with an opening planned for late summer or early fall of 2005.

In addition, Hy-Vee acquired the former Sun Mart property at the southwest corner of Blairs Ferry Road and Center Point Road, and will be relocating the Drug Town store at 1943 Blairs Ferry Road to this site. The Sun Mart building will be torn down and a 16,000-square-foot Drug Town built on the site. Construction will begin in the spring of 2005, with an opening scheduled for the fall of next year.

Hy-Vee, Inc. is an employee-owned corporation operating 220 retail stores in seven Midwestern states. For the fiscal year 2004, which ended October 3, the company expects to post sales in excess of $4.6 billion, ranking it among the top 15 supermarket chains and the top 30 private companies in the U.S.