SYRACUSE — About two-thirds of current Price Rite grocery-store locations operate in buildings that had previously operated as supermarkets.

“This was a supermarket, too,” says Neil Duffy, president of Price Rite, referencing the building at 611 South Ave. in Syracuse where Commercial & Residential Painting, Inc. currently operates.

The building was once home to a Loblaws location that closed in 1970, according to Duffy.

Walter Dixie, executive director of Jubilee Homes of Syracuse, Inc., has long pushed for a supermarket on Syracuse’s South Side and first contacted Price Rite in the early part of the decade.

“We’ve been working on this project ever since,” says Duffy.

He spoke to CNYBJ before Price Rite, Jubilee Homes of Syracuse, Inc., state, county, and city officials broke ground on the site during a ceremony June 17.

Price Rite has plans to open a store at 611 South Ave. in Syracuse, expanding on a property that Jubilee Homes of Syracuse, Inc. has owned since 2009.

The new store will be known as Price Rite of Southwest Syracuse, according to a news release issued at the event.

Price Rite already operates a Syracuse location at 1625 Erie Boulevard East.

The grocery store has been working with the nonprofit Jubilee Homes to bring a store to an area that’s designated as a “food desert.”

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,” according to the definition listed at the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Price Rite plans to add to the existing 18,000-square-foot structure on the property, and nearly double the space to 35,000 square feet, according to Duffy.

Commercial & Residential Painting plans to vacate the structure and move to the Charette Brothers building at 1426 Valley Drive in July, Melissa Coyne, company manager, said in an email response to a CNYBJ inquiry.

VIP Structures will handle the construction and design work on the $5.5 million project, says Duffy.

“This is probably the single most important project that we’ve ever done … not because of size … but for what it does … we are so thankful to be included in this,” Dave Nutting, chairman & CEO, VIP Structures, said in his remarks during the groundbreaking.

The project cost includes a $1.4 million grant through the Central New York regional economic-development council, Richard Tobe, New York’s director of upstate development, said in his remarks at the groundbreaking ceremony.

Price Rite expects the store will employ between 100 and 125 full and part-time workers once it opens in November, says Duffy. That’s part of the company’s fiscal first quarter.

The store will feature “some of the industry’s leading ‘green technologies,’ including glass doors on dairy cases and energy-efficient lighting and refrigeration, according to the release.

Price Rite says it has “different approaches to help keep costs down and pass along those savings to customers.” They include less spending on advertising and store décor than “conventional” stores and encouraging customers to bring their own bags or buy a reusable bag for 10 cents.

Price Rite operates 62 stores in a footprint that includes New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Virginia.

The company currently operates 12 stores in New York, says Duffy.

The store says it offers customers an expanded produce department and food products “at savings up to 50 percent less than traditional supermarkets.”

Keasbey, New Jersey–based Wakefern Food Corp. is the parent company of Price Rite.

PRRC, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Keasbey, New Jersey–based Wakefern Food Corp., opened the first Price Rite store in West Springfield, Massachusetts in 1995, according to the Wakefern website. 

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com