Walls have gone up on the Avenue’s latest supermarket… ShopRite, a New Jersey-based company, with 220 stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and Delaware, is constructing a new store on Central Avenue, behind the Capital OTB Tele-Plex Racing Center.
Construction began in June, and it is expected to be completed in early spring. Today, in the “hard-hat only zone,” bulldozers, backhoes, and cranes hummed around the four raised walls. These will form the store’s foundation.
The new store measures about 70,000 square feet and will include a fresh bake shop, fresh meats, fresh seafood, full-service floral department, and pharmacy, as well as a broad selection of organic products.
To allow for access from Central Avenue, the ShopRite construction project will include the demolition of the Capital OTB Tele-Plex Racing Center with the Tele-Theater Clubhouse. A large parking lot will be constructed on this site with primary entrances to the store via Central Avenue. Deliveries will be made via Third Street entrances.
ShopRite will open a brand-new store in Niskayuna October 2 at what was previously called St. James Square. The 55,000 square foot Niskayuna ShopRite will offer home delivery services as well as a full hot and cold bar.
ShopRite began as a cooperative of eight independent grocers in the 1946. These grocers purchased merchandise collectively so that they could offer competitive prices to customers. They formed the Wakefern Corporation, and ultimately changed their individual store names to ShopRite—and the new retailer-owned cooperative was born. Today, most ShopRites are still family owned and operated.
