Sunday, August 19, 2018

Thoughts About Supermarkets

This evening, Bill Williams of 95.5 The Cat contacted Gossips to say that the second part of the supermarket rumor has been confirmed. ShopRite is indeed moving to the Price Chopper location, farther out on Fairview Avenue: "Hudson Price Chopper to close, ShopRite to move." Williams reported on Friday morning: "ShopRite is moving. We're told they will be moving into the current Price Chopper and former thrift shop next door. The new ShopRite will have a pharmacy and auto repair center. That move is expected before the end of the year." (I won't bother to point out that neither Price Chopper nor ShopRite is actually in Hudson.)

Hudson is a food desert, a USDA designation earned because, for most residents of the city, there is no supermarket within one mile. Using a location below Third Street as the starting point, ShopRite, our closest supermarket, is 2.1 miles away, and Price Chopper, soon to be the new location of ShopRite, is 3.2 miles away. For people who don't own cars, these distances are significant. There are plans to relocate Aldi's to a new retail center planned for the current site of McDonald's, where Healy Boulevard meets Fairview Avenue. Aldi's will be the anchor store, a new McDonald's its centerpiece. The proposal for the new retail development is currently before the Greenport Planning Board. The new Aldi's would be marginally closer to Hudson than the current ShopRite, but ShopRite is expected to move before the end of the year, and there's no telling how long it will be before Aldi's new location is constructed.

At the second DRI public workshop, Larisa Ortiz, the retail specialist on the planning team assigned to Hudson, reported that Hudson residents spend $5 million annually at the supermarkets of Greenport. She also asserted that Hudson could support a 10,000 square foot grocery store. To put that in perspective, the Golub Corporation, which, in addition to abandoning its Greenport site, is rebranding and changing the name of its stores to "Market 32," built a new store last year in Fort Edward. The Schenectady Daily Gazette reported at the time that the new supermarket, around 41,000 square feet, is among the smallest in the chain. According to Golub CEO, "the size that works best" is 55,000 to 65,000 square feet. The article in the Daily Gazette helpfully points out: "Counting the end zones, a U.S. football field is 57,600 square feet."

Gossips research finds that the only supermarket chain with stores as small as 10,000 square feet is Trader Joe's.
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8 comments:

  1. Does John explain in his letter what are the issues surrounding spot zoning and legislative licensing, and how the overlay approach avoids these issues? I may be a lawyer, but I'm not a land use lawyer, and these are technicalities I am not familiar with.

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  2. New HUD housing guidelines require a grocery store within a close radius. Do we really want that?

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  3. Luckily, for the local elderly and those without vehicles or reliable vehicles, Stewart's sells: JIF peanut butterand Smuckers grape jelly; every condiment you might want, including horseradish; Jones sausage, English muffins and eggs; three shapes of Ronzoni pasta, name brand grated Parmesan cheese, and tomato sauce; Oscar Meyer cold cuts, Cabot cheeses, plural; name brand pickles; Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce; in addition to milk and half n half and butter; Entenmann's danish; water and juices and teas.

    And that is based on a cursory look.

    Does Stewart's sell Saint Stephen Triple Cream or Eleven Brothers Washed Rind? No.

    Does Stewart's sell Medjool dates? No.

    Does Stewart's absolutely serve as a community market? Yes, it does.

    Susan

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    1. Stewart's, selling peanut butter and jelly and every condiment under the sun, is 1.3 miles from my below Third Street starting point. I'm not sure how many of the "local elderly and those without vehicles or reliable vehicles" to go Stewart's. Besides, it's hardly a supermarket. It's a convenience store. And one that wants to expand to accommodate the fastest growing segment of its business: food-to-go.

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  4. One of two affordable grocery stores closes, one moves further away from downtown, while in downtown Hudson we now have yet another boutique Hotel with a pool and a "lounge" serving expensive drinks to the well-heeled. I believe this is called unsustainability. Pretty soon we'll have another expensive grocery store competing with Olde Hudson, cus no grocery chain can afford rents here, that's for sure. And we use the tax money from the hotels to attract more people to visit and still the sidewalks off of Warren Street are as dangerous as ever and getting worse by the season with no plan to deal with the problem. As in all of America, the divide widens here in Hudson, too.

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  5. Hudson should consider public transport and have a trolley from downtown to Greenport.

    look at the upstart solutions -- the Wick as a small electric car -- how cool is that ??

    Hudson needs an electric trolley -- its obvious !!

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  6. I know for some it may be complicated to order pantry essentials online. But I hope that older folks in the Hudson area might be helped with the set up and carry on on their own. Shoperite has shop from home App that includes fresh food. Groceries would be delivered to the home. A credit card is necessary.Target has many basics and free ship on $25 orders. I have a car but find it so helpful to get basics delivered because grocery stores are too big and exhausting. Then, there's the winter, UGH.

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  7. hello
    and just how long has public transportation existed,as get on the bus Gus, from Hudson to just about all the stores in Greenport on the Hudson, YEARS.

    It starts at 7:00am by Bliss and Providence Hall and one can hail the bus as it journeys up Warren.
    Handicap access too.
    Um why is this a big secret?

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