Hill District Shop N Save closing on March 20th

[tyovan4]

Originally Posted by szug-bot

Not a Market District (or, why not that?), but a slimmed down store, maybe with self-checkout only, who knows. Some type of model that may not require a lot of capital, labor costs, intense internal management, etc.

I am not in the grocery business. I think, though, G. Eagle might succeed where Shop n Suck failed.

Aldis is an interesting idea, as well.

In any case - NO public funds.

We've established that shop-lifting is a problem, so somehow I'd wager that self-checkout is a horrible idea. There are already little shopettes that are similar to a Market Express scattered around the Hill. They don't need another one. The new Shell station on Fifth barely makes any effort to sell food - its basically a gas station and an attached bottle shop (not that I'm complaining about a convenient place to pick up a 40 after work... )...

I'd say that the Hill would need something like an Aldi - local, large enough to be able to offer more than a glorified convenience store could, offer affordable options, not large enough to need to have high prices to provide overhead, not requiring a lot of maintenance (Aldi doesn't even remove their products from the cases to stock their shelves), competitive wages and flexible hours for competent workers, and also with the European-style lay-out of the entrance/exit/check-out area - I think it would be much more difficult to shop-lift from Aldi than from a traditional American-style grocer.

I won't hold my breath for any sort of common-sense solution though, as Mayor Pe-ndejo is involved...
"We are going to work to maintain and to keep a grocery store in the Hill District, and we've been working through a community process that's being led by [city] Councilman [R. Daniel] Lavelle and [state] Rep. Jake Wheatley, as we look at all of the properties in the Hill House and in the community, and what the repurpose would look like," Mr. Peduto said, following a news conference on another topic.
- https://www.post-gazette.com/local/c...s/201902210129 "

Originally Posted by jimsing59

Shoplifting in the area makes it hard to turn a profit. It gets dark early in the Winter and it's unsafe to shop there after dark as there are robberies, too. Kuhn's Market or Save a Lot could make it work, but it's just not a good place to run a business. Maybe it's just not the time for a Super Market in the Hill District.

It gets dark early in the winter everywhere in Pgh. Is this particular location a place where I'd want to be at 10 or 11 at night? No, probably not. But I'm there every single day in the late afternoon/early evening - and I've never had problems. There are no problems in the evening during 'normal' shopping hours.
There's a police station literally across the street from this location - so I don't think people are going to be getting mugged in the parking lot anyway.

[svband76]

The Hill needs a grocery store and is no less safe than many other so-called "safer" neighborhoods. It's sad.

[pittsburghaccuweather]

Originally Posted by zalewskimm

The Hill needs a grocery store and is no less safe than many other so-called "safer" neighborhoods. It's sad.

Reality continues to reject that opinion. Nobody is questioning safety. If there was money to be made and true demand for a grocery store shop n save would not close. I don’t know why this is so hard to understand. Grocery stores are in business to make money. They don’t just put a store in to lose money and feed people out of the goodness of their heart.

This parallels the affordable housing argument. Let’s give freebie housing in a hot neighborhood. Those people still won’t be able to afford Main Street Lawrenceville shops. If you can’t afford a house in the true market you probably can’t afford to patronize the business there either.

[eschaton]

Grocery stores are in fact very low margin businesses. One of the largest reasons for this is shoplifting, which can result in as much as 10% of store stock being lost. The proportion of goods lost via shoplifting does tend to be higher in low-income neighborhoods, which is why grocery stores need to proportionately do more, rather than less, business in poor neighborhoods to stay profitable.

I remember a few years back, when Amazon was considering opening up retail chains nationwide, people were getting very, very nervous for this reason. Essentially Amazon thinks it can use the system in its warehouses (where cameras track where objects are at all times) in a retail setting. Enter the store via swiping an Amazon card, pull items off the shelf, put them in your bag, and walk out when you're done. Theoretically the system should be theft-proof, which would give them a huge advantage in retail over competitors. And the more places which put into place theft-proof retailing, the more shoplifters will be forced into the remainder of the market, putting normal stores out of business more rapidly.

[gg]

The Shop'n Save opened in 2013, ending decades during which the central neighborhood had no large grocery. The $12 million development was built with private and public funding, including $1 million from the Pittsburgh Penguins, $1 million from Mr. Ross, nearly $2 million in federal tax credits, a $789,000 federal grant, $400,000 from the Heinz Endowments and $300,000 from McAuley Ministries.



Wow. They sure threw a lot of money at this failure. Shame all that was burned up for nothing.

https://www.post-gazette.com/local/c...s/201902210129

[pittsburghaccuweather]

Originally Posted by gg

The Shop'n Save opened in 2013, ending decades during which the central neighborhood had no large grocery. The $12 million development was built with private and public funding, including $1 million from the Pittsburgh Penguins, $1 million from Mr. Ross, nearly $2 million in federal tax credits, a $789,000 federal grant, $400,000 from the Heinz Endowments and $300,000 from McAuley Ministries.



Wow. They sure threw a lot of money at this failure. Shame all that was burned up for nothing.

https://www.post-gazette.com/local/c...s/201902210129

Yeah and it still closed. I heard the rent was pretty much free. If more people were moving there and the neighborhood was growing then demand for a grocery would come. Until then, no grocery store will make it up there.

[SteelCityRising]

I reached out to Lidl encouraging them to open a store here as they consider expanding to Pittsburgh. They said they would look into it.

[erieguy]

Originally Posted by pittsburghaccuweather

Yeah and it still closed. I heard the rent was pretty much free. If more people were moving there and the neighborhood was growing then demand for a grocery would come. Until then, no grocery store will make it up there.

Bingo.

If there was money to be made there then someone would be making it.