The Save-A-Lot grocery chain wants to move into the Whalley Avenue store that Staples is leaving. Neighbors vowed to stop the plan.
The building’s property owner filed papers on Friday seeking zoning permission to turn the 17,000 square-foot building into a new grocery store. The Staples office supply store is scheduled to close Nov. 21. The news, combined with the recent closing of Rite-Aid next door, has business people worried about what will come next.
Concerned neighbors immediately vowed to fight the Sav-A-Lot plan. Locals said the area does not need a “low-end grocery store” that could threaten the viability of area grocers, like the Shaw’s supermarket just down the block.
Save-A-Lot owns 1,200 discount grocery stores nationwide.
John Vuoso, chair of the Whalley Avenue Special Services District, said Save-A-Lot’s expected clientele is “not what we’re looking for” in the neighborhood.
The Board of Zoning Appeals will consider the Save-A-Lot plan at its Dec. 8 meeting.
Staples’ decision to move touched off heated discussion about what lay ahead for the property, which is owned by a New York surgeon named Monquidh Al-Sawaaf.
Al-Sawaaf also owns the former Rite-Aid (pictured), which shares a wall with Staples. The Rite-Aid has been closed since September. Local organizations were trying to work with Al-Sawaaf to decide the next step for the two important commercial properties, which stand at the gateway to Whalley Avenue. Plans for the former Rite-Aid are still unknown.
Francine Caplan of the Whalley Avenue Revitalization Group (WARG) said her organization has been “working behind the scenes to see what was going on.”
The group had a meeting with Dan Charest, Al-Sawaaf’s property manager. “We made ourselves clear to the owner that we didn’t want to see drug stores, liquor stores, or fast food restaurants,” Caplan said.
When Charest mentioned the Save-A-Lot option at the WARG meeting, members said that they were opposed to the idea, Caplan said.
Caplan said that she believed that Charest was negotiating with her group, until she heard that zoning papers for Save-A-Lot were filed. “We’re kind of upset,” she said. “We did think that they would come back to us and talk to us.”
Charest did not respond to calls for comment.
Caplan said that WARG is opposed to a Save-A-Lot for aesthetic and economic reasons. “We don’t need a low-end food store,” she said. “It would put Shaw’s probably out of business.”
“I don’t think that’s the best and highest use for that particular site,” said Shiela Masterson, director of the Whalley Avenue Special Services District. Rather than another grocery store, Masterson suggested putting in a “clothier” like a T.J. Maxx or an H&M.
“There is no place in New Haven to buy a pair of socks,” she said. Locals are forced to drive out to the mall, and their dollars then leave the community, she said.
Another alternative would be to “pop the top and add a couple of floors” to create a mixed-use development, Masterson said.
“We went a step further,” said Vuoso (pictured), the chair of the WASSD board. “To make it more attractive for the owner,” WASSD hired an architect, who “drafted a beautiful mixed use building there.” The speculative plans showed a new building with two commercial spaces on the ground floor, apartments above, and parking in the rear.
“We’ll even help get the developer,” Vuoso said he told Al-Sawaaf. “Look what you can do with this.”
But the property owner wasn’t interested, Vuoso said. “He doesn’t care.”
Vuoso echoed Caplan and Masterson’s predictions that a Save-A-Lot would pose a threat to Shaw’s supermarket. He also raised concerns about the “kind of clientele” that a Save-A-Lot would attract. “It’s not what we’re looking for,” he said. “We’re trying to upscale the district.”
He declined to define “the clientele” further. “We’re trying to change the people walking on Whalley,” he said. He objected to “the hanging around” and “the riffraff.”
Vuoso predicted that neighbors will show up in force for the Dec. 8 BZA meeting, when the board will consider the Save-A-Lot zoning applications. “We’re going to have the same thing we had with the laundromat,” he said, referring to the recently ended, year-long battle to prevent a laundromat from opening on Whalley.
“We’re all for business,” Vuoso said. “But the right business.”