Tops Friendly Markets
Opened: 2001, 2013
Previous Tenants: Grand Union > Tops > Grand Union Family Markets > Tops
Location: 16 W Main St, Hancock, NY
Photographed: May 2018
Contributor: Retail Regents
Our friends over at the Retail Regents blog submitted these photos of the Grand Union-turned-Tops-turned-Grand Union-turned-Tops in Hancock, NY, right at the Pennsylvania border. Check out their blog for more pictures of this store and lots other across New York!
Like many Grand Union-Tops conversions, this one retains many of its original Grand Union elements. One original element is the exterior, which you may recognize as nearly identical to what we saw over at the Newfield Grade A.
Very Grand Union front-end! The lower ceiling panel and checkout lights are original to Grand Union's previous renovation. The 12,000 square foot store might be tiny for a chain supermarket, but the next closest supermarkets are a Big M 13 miles north in Deposit and Peck's Supermarket, an IGA 23 miles south in Callicoon. I hope to get up to this area someday but for now, those plans are on hold.
Tops has updated the register lights in a few location (i.e. Bolton Landing and Tannersville), so I don't know if they still have them here. I know the Northville one still has theirs.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, these pictures were actually photographed in May 2018. The area is pretty desolate so I don't really want to return to that area.
Makes sense. And thanks for the date correction, I've fixed it above. That's exactly why I haven't been out this way although I've done a lot of the Hudson Valley and northeastern PA... there's just kind of not much here.
DeleteJust about any of those GrandTopsGrandTopsUnions are likely to be in the same setup (maybe excepting Tannersville) - smaller, older and little if any changes made by their new(er) ownerships.
ReplyDeleteAfter the bankruptcy in 2001, the Grand Union stores that stuck around were those with little (or no, as you show here) real competition (it wouldn't be a surprise if those other two stores you mention aren't much different in setup, just different brand names), which means they are likely both reasonably profitable and that they didn't see much point to doing major work on them (unless it was replacing something that was just not working).
After all, in some of these areas it's not even going to be that easy to get items delivered to you from the online services, and people may go a longer distance occasionally for a major trip but they are likely to get most of the business no matter what they do (or don't) do.
Yes, exactly. All of that. This also seems to be the type of store Tops runs well, small locations in desolate locations with little competition. And as you probably know, I like Tops a lot.
DeleteI still wonder if this was really a store that went through the Tops-go-round, given that most of the stores in the region (i.e. Stamford, Coxsackie) stayed as Grand Union until 2012.
DeleteI was only going by the original post that made it look that way, though it probably would make more sense that it did stay as Grand Union until the final (OK, we thought final until a couple weeks ago) sales to Tops.
DeleteCould be for sure. I don't know whether the store went through that whole cycle, I just kind of assumed it did.
DeleteSome other thoughts: there weren't a lot of stores outside the Adirondacks that went through the cycle (Hamilton almost finished that cycle but closed in 2012), so there is still that possibility of this store remaining as GU until being converted to Tops in 2013. Also, looking at the last pick, there's a chrome-framed Kids' cart that had the Grand Union name, which would make it hard to believe it would stay around for numerous conversions. There is also a possibility this store (and that Grade A Market) predating A&P's Centennial design, and perhaps it may have been an influence on their design?
Deletehttps://fultonhistory.com/Newspapers%2023/Hancock%20NY%20Herald/Hancock%20NY%20Herald%201960-1963/Hancock%20NY%20Herald%201960-1963%20-%200172.pdf
ReplyDeleteFound this link, which happened to pop up about an A&P in Hancock in 1960, along with one of a postcard showing an older A&P storefront in the main street in the 1950's.
So - is it possible this was actually originally built by A&P as a replacement for their Main Street store, then converted to Grand Union at some point (given that A&P pulled out of a lot of areas around the early 1980's, a town like this with no other options would have been attractive to Grand Union, and that they themselves were still building a store under 25,000 Square Feet in 1994, so they knew how to work with older/smaller locations)?
While the inside/front end looks quite GU, it's certainly possible they did that after moving in...
Ehhhh.... I suppose it is indeed possible but I doubt it. The store bears much more similarity to former Grand Union locations that vaguely resemble A&P Centennials than true A&P Centennials.
DeleteOf course, I could be wrong, but there are a few characteristics of this building that make me think it's more GU than A&P. For one, the building lacks the triangular section in the center of the facade -- that's the obvious one, but also unfortunately not a sure sign (since some A&Ps didn't have that triangle). But the building itself is more square than rectangular. Compare this building's shape to what's now the ACME in Shrub Oak -- a similarly sized building of a similar vintage. Notice how the original Centennial structure is maybe 150% as long as it is wide? This one is square, something we see more in former Grand Unions such as those in Stamford and Port Jervis. https://independent.marketreportblog.com/2020/11/tour-grade-market-newfield-stamford-ct.html I also find it a bit strange that the building would be only about 13,000 square feet instead of the 18,000 that Centennials were consistently built at -- although there are of course exceptions to that; see Ravena at just 9,000 square feet.
Now all that said, I can probably find exceptions for each of those rules. There is debate as to whether or not the store that's now the ShopRite of Millburn, NJ was built as an A&P (or planned as one), and that store never had a triangle in the middle of the facade, so it's unclear. A&P Centennial stores in Glen Rock and Little Silver (now SuperFresh and ACME, respectively) plus others I'm sure, were more square than rectangular, and Centennials seem to have been built in a range of roughly 8,000 up to maybe as large as 25,000 square feet. So it's hard to tell for sure, but my gut tells me this building is analogous to Stamford and Port Jervis -- and therefore, if this was built as an A&P and then sold, those would have been too.