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| Henrietta, NY outside Rochester, Wegmans' hometown (I go to the Brighton one when I'm in Monroe County myself). |
Wegmans have a reputation that reaches well outside their core market that stretches from New England to the Mid-Atlantic (rather Virginia closer to Washington, DC as the Alexandria store recently opened). The NY Capital Region has been overlooked for a long time and it has been said that a gentlemans agreement between the family and the Golubs who run
Price Chopper out of Schenectady County agreed to avoid each others backyards while competing in Massachusetts, CNY, Twin Tiers and half of Pennsylvania. Hopes remain high for Albany area shoppers who don't want to go to my neck of the woods or towards Boston where another store will open in a couple years. Even down the Hudson, a tri-state one is open in Brooklyn though people there can also take
NJ Transit over to New Jersey (i.e. Mercer County) if they can manage that. While I don't go to the Capital District quite as much as I have growing up anymore, where to build is more of a challenge as Wegmans stores now are streets ahead of other competitors like
Hannaford,
ShopRite and almost even
Walmart as far as size is concerned so this will be more of a guess than when I usually do this kind of post so if you know the vicinity more than I do these days feel free to comment on where they could go. All I did was leave a brief anonymous handwritten note urging that they open in Cuomo Country in the suggestion box over at my local store, something which people in Syracuse may take for granted being eight in Onondaga County alone (one going to Tops has come up here in the past, as it is rare in recent memory for a Wegmans to have to go as have Driving Park (now ShopRites sister chain
PriceRite) in their native Monroe County or the original John Glenn store in Liverpool when a newer one opened next door several years ago). The Mohawk Valley and even Cortland County could also be a part of this and while I go there a bit more trying to find the space in smaller towns is also a bit of a do as the usual vacancies I see wouldn't even suit a
Lidl or
Waitrose for that matter in the EU. Wegmans are simply too leviathan in nature to just retrofit someone elses old building so they just start from scratch anyway (apart from a future downstate location where kmart used to be). Just need enough land and there's the old adage of location, location, location (even though it's more clichéd with residential than commercial property, but since this is a business that's open to the public, of course, everyone has to be able to find it easily). Zoning laws, traffic concerns and other red tape are a given too. They're no run of the mill big box. Here's where the
Consumer Reports #1 supermarket pick could expand their footprint now:
Cortlandville - NY 13 (vacant lot south of NY 281 looks big enough to build)
Watertown - NY 3 or 12
New Hartford - NY 5A
Utica - NY 8 & 12
Herkimer - NY 5
Oneida - NY 5
Latham - US 9 & NY 2 & 7 (possibly where Latham Circle Mall had been)
East Greenbush - NY 43 or US 4
Glenmont - US 9W
Rotterdam - Via Port (if much of it including the former Macys is demolished), NY 337
Kingston - Dutchess County Mall (around the old
JCPenney as this is in between Albany and NYC), US 9W
Rhinebeck - US 9
Fishkill - US 9 (hotbed for big box in Dutchess County)
Washington, DC (even though Alexandria, VA store just opened across the Potomac)
Schenectady - NY 5
Springfield - US 20? (a Berkshires store would make sense as they work their way east on I-90)
Worcester - TBD (I don't know the first thing about this except that it's in the middle of the capitals)
