SYDNEY, Australia – Coles and Woolworths are honing in on convenience store territory with plans to open small stores in city centers, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. The push comes as city populations are growing, along with office-block conversions to residential living space, in areas that don’t have the land for traditional grocery stores.

In Sydney, Woolworths has been grabbing up 200- to 400-square meter spaces for locations designed to compete with 7-Eleven and City Convenience stores. “We have a small number of smaller format supermarkets that are designed to best meet the needs of the local community,” said a Woolworths spokesman. At the “Woolworths Small Format,” the locations will have a more restrictive product range and will be “feeder” stores to the medium-sized Woolies Metro locations.

However, the potential competition has convenience stores clamoring for a level playing field. Topping the list of concerns is price, followed by the restrictions currently placed on convenience stores selling packaged alcohol.

“It will be important to ensure the retail environment is competitive should the major chains push ahead with such a strategy. For instance, we would be concerned if schemes similar to the previous excessive fuel discounting were to be introduced,” Jeff Rogut, CEO of the Australasian Association of Convenience Stores, told the newspaper while in the United States attending the NACS Show. The number of Australians living in cities is behind a new golden age for convenience stores in general.