An abandoned cart sits on the parking lot of the North Albany Village center on May 1.
“Do you know if the market is going forward?” a reader asked Saturday, referring to the planned supermarket at North Albany Village. And the short answer is yes, it is.
It’s taking longer than expected, apparently. I asked my longtime contact at the Deacon Corp. how things stood. Deacon is in charge of developing the North Albany center for the New York entity that owns it.
The response I received on May 10 was that “everything is fine and on schedule. If you take your bike ride past the store, you will see we cut new doors into the space on the southwest corner to serve the outside sales area and the hardware store.”
One of two new door openings for the building, as it looked on May 1.
(I had noticed the door construction before, so there was no need for a ride.)
For a few weeks now, plumbers, electricians and concrete workers have been working at the site, I was told, but almost all the work has been indoors. A few days ago I saw a crew cleaning the wooden trellis outside the building. Also, there has been some caulking of doors and windows.
The next thing will be restriping the parking lot, I understand, but that is waiting for the next round of good weather.
The work going on — mostly invisible though it may be from the outside so far — is to prepare the former Ray’s Food Store so The Myers Group, based in the Seattle area, can open a general supermarket along with an ACE hardware store in the space. As for a likely opening date, I’ve not been able to obtain one, no matter how urgently many North Albany residents want it to be soon. (hh)
Good on ’em! Eagerly awaiting.
As one who likely will shop there almost daily, I find waiting excruciating. Maybe the new store will be at least as nice as Roth’s IGA from many years ago.
I love Roth’s. There are still several in the Salem area. I wish that the store in North Albany was going to be a Roth’s, but I am just happy that it is going to be IGA, and am looking forward to shopping there. Also we will finally have a real hardware store in town without having to go to one of the two big evil boxes.
If you’d like good local hardware, try MacDonalds on First St just west of the infamous train tressel.
I have never been there, I will have to check them out. Thanks.
They aren’t a complete hardware yet, but they seem to be trying.
Connectors were their base and they’re rock solid there. Metric, SAE, wood –got that
Tools etc, gotta look
If the ACE is well-stocked and has weekend hours, they’ll do well