WINCHESTER, VA-Privately-held Hobby Lobby is aggressively expanding in Maryland and Virginia with an eye to executing leases on stores that are close to the DC Beltway. The retailer has just opened its fourth location in the region, in Salisbury, MD, and next month it will open its fifth store here. “Hobby Lobby doesn’t have a set number of stores it is opening in the region but it does have an ‘open to buy’ for the DC/Baltimore area,” H&R Retail’s president David Ward tells GlobeSt.com. “It will execute its sixth lease in Maryland this week.”

Ward and colleague Ben Hoskins represented Hobby Lobby in the transactions. Jim Crilley with H&R Retail represented the landlord in the Salisbury transaction. In Salisbury it has taken a 56,800-square foot lease at North Point Plaza. In Winchester, it is leasing 55,793 square foot lease at South Pleasant Valley Road. H&R is exclusively representing Hobby Lobby in Maryland, Virginia and the District.

All together, the retailer hopes to have opened dozens of locations nationally by next year, Ward says. “Because it is a private company it doesn’t have to report its pipeline but it is in a solid financial position” for this growth, he says. Hobby Lobby’s preference is for 55,000 or so square feet in shopping centers that have a strong co-tenancy. “It likes to be with other anchors and it loves power centers,” Ward says.