The project has completely revitalised a prominent, but rather drab looking part of the city centre.

The supermarket is providing crucial employment for those who worked in its predecessor in that location and the other Safeway store at the Wodonga Plaza which has closed.

The impact on the plaza with a key tenant departing can't be glossed over for the businesses which remain and the employment opportunities they provide.

A similar thing will happen when the Mann Central shopping centre finally opens.

A Coles supermarket is a key component of the Mann complex, but will come at the expense of the High Street store.

Filling those large buildings with tenants will be a major challenge for their owners.

As will be filling the many specialist shops within the Woolworths and Mann developments.

High Street traders face some difficult decisions in coming months given the emergence of the two new centres and more pending major roadworks.

There is no disputing the retail heart is shifting north around the High Street-Elgin Boulevard intersection where Junction Place is beginning to kick some goals as a food and beverage destination.

But in order to fill up the specialty shops there needs to be large anchor tenants to draw in the shoppers.

Plus there is the challenge of changing generations of consumer habits of Wodonga residents of travelling to Albury to do the bulk of their shopping.

It can easily be forgotten that the impetus for all this change was the removal of the railway line from the centre of Wodonga seven years ago.

Central Wodonga's transformation will remain a work in progress for many years, maybe decades to come.

Hopefully the increasing activity can also lead to some renewed investor interest in the Stanley Street swimming pool site and former Richardson Park land which has sat idle for years.

It is prime real estate in the middle of a growing city crying out for a use.

But step by step Wodonga is changing for the better.