The 35,000-square-foot store at 611 South Ave. will employ nearly 100 people, the company said.
Price Rite has worked closely with Jubilee Homes of Syracuse Inc., a local nonprofit, and Walter Dixie, its executive director, along with city, county and state officials to bring the new store to an area designated as a “food desert, providing a service-oriented supermarket and serving as a retail anchor tenant along the South Avenue corridor,” the grocer said in a news release.
Food deserts are areas that “lack access to affordable fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk, and other foods that make up a full and healthy diet,” per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Price Rite officials will hold a formal-opening ceremony for the new store at 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.
Price Rite also plans to make a $3,000 donation to Sharon Owens, CEO of the Syracuse Model Neighborhood Facility Inc., in the name of the Southwest Community Center.
The Southwest Community Center is a nonprofit, multipurpose neighborhood center located a few blocks north of the Price Rite.
“We are pleased to announce the opening of our new Syracuse store on South Avenue, and we are privileged to be part of this community and all the great new development that is happening along the southwest corridor,” Neil Duffy, president of Price Rite, said in the company’s release. “Local residents have been waiting for a supermarket for a long time, and we look forward to becoming a vital part of the community…”
About two-thirds of current Price Rite grocery-store locations operate in buildings that had previously operated as supermarkets.
“This was a supermarket, too,” Duffy told BJNN at a June 17, 2016 groundbreaking ceremony, referencing the building at 611 South Ave. where Commercial & Residential Painting, Inc. previously operated.
The building was once home to a Loblaws supermarket location that closed in 1970, according to Duffy.
Commercial & Residential Painting now operates at 1426 Valley Drive in Syracuse.
VIP Structures handled the construction and design work on the $5.5 million project, Duffy said in the June 2016 interview.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com
PHOTO CAPTION: Construction crews put the finishing touches on the new Price Rite grocery store at 611 South Ave. in Syracuse. The store opens to the public on Sunday morning. (Eric Reinhardt / BJNN)