99 E Broadway, Monticello, NY

Original Grocery Tenant: none; supermarket previously planned
Address: 99 E Broadway, Monticello, NY

Opened: n/a

Closed: n/a

Later Tenants: vacant

Photographed: February 3, 2021

Welcome to... not a grocery store! The Apollo Plaza just outside of Monticello, NY, was constructed in 1983, bringing around 200,000 square feet to eastern Monticello. It quickly declined for several reasons, and the final tenant moved out just 20 years later. Any number of proposals have been made over the years, and it's been sold repeatedly, but no real movement has happened.

I thought the expansive parking lot and wide mall storefronts looked particularly eerie with a coating of snow over everything. I always like to see abandoned things, especially large ones like this, but it must be an eyesore for locals. Zoom in below and you can still see the APOLLO sign in the middle, along with a Van Heusen sign next to it. A few years after the mall closed, a local developer (whose family owns a Key Food store we'll be touring Monday and the now-closed Liberty Market) purchased the mall and promised to redevelop it, only to sell it a few years later to a developer from Long Island who owns a chain of Chinese supermarkets. As far as I can tell, all such plans fell through.

You can read lots more about this mall online, including here, here, here, and here. That's all for our brief interruption, and on Monday, we'll return to supermarket coverage with a tour on The Independent Edition!