Filling Spencerport's business district vacancies aim of revitalization efforts

Filling Spencerport's business district
vacancies aim of revitalization efforts

Village of Spencerport and Spencerport Area Chamber of Commerce leaders are looking for an anchor store - preferably a grocery store - to fill the space left vacant when an IGA closed in the village's plaza last fall.

"We need an anchor store but the smaller supermarkets that we've approached are afraid of the competition from area Wegman's and from the Super Wal-Mart that's opening (in Brockport)," Joyce Lobene, president of the Chamber of Commerce said. "Those store owners don't really understand that the people in this area would rather patronize a store in the village than drive outside of it to shop."

Village officials have been thinking of solutions to the vacancies in the plaza and are working with the plaza owner, Morgan Management, toward solutions. "With the loss of the grocery store and more recently the closing of the movie retail store, the whole vitality of the plaza is in jeopardy," Village Mayor Ted Walker said. Another concern is the announcement that Rite Aid will be buying the Eckerd chain and village officials don't know what that will mean in terms of those two stores within the village. "We don't know if Rite Aid will merge with Eckerd and combine forces and move out of the plaza - these are some of the unknowns we are facing," Walker said.

An "East Avenue Concept" that officials are looking into could add vitality to the area. "We need to get traffic flowing both ways in and out of the plaza," Walker said. "Having a two-way street on East Avenue, one that would exit on Lyell, would offer more visibility to the plaza residents. Many of the plaza tenants say there is no exposure because the traffic pattern in the plaza is not conducive to thru traffic." The idea of an East Avenue Concept, Walker said, is merely in the talking stages and no formalized plans are in place.

Lobene said the East Avenue idea could be a viable project. "It would go along the canal at the back of the plaza and offer more exposure to the store owners there."

The village has focused on the streetscape and its Main Street, Walker said. "We've updated the street lights, installed benches and instituted a program this past summer to allow Main Street merchants to set out tables and chairs for the patrons," he said.

Lobene said the plaza's facade program is slated to kick off in March. "There is a lot to do to keep businesses here in the village, in addition to finding that anchor store," she said. "We also need to put a moratorium on pizza places and hair salons. The village needs to attract retail stores to the Main Street area."

The village businesses, Lobene said, are doing very well and store fronts continue to be filled.

As a way to highlight the attributes of the village, an infomercial is on the Chamber of Commerce website www.spencerportchamber.org/. The video runs on Channel 13 during the Home Show on Sunday at 11 a.m. "We're also putting together another infomercial that will promote both what the village and the Town of Ogden have to offer," Lobene said. "We want to promote Ogden's light industrial zoning because if a business locates in the town, it will help the tax base and people would inevitably come to the village to shop."

Walker said the revitalization of the village is an on-going concern that village officials are working to address.