The former Britton Road Wegmans in Greece could become climate-controlled self-storage, and it’s just the latest former Wegmans location to find new life in the Rochester area.
For generations of Rochester-area shoppers, these stores were where families bought groceries, picked up birthday cakes and made weekly trips with parents and grandparents. While many have disappeared, their buildings — or the sites where they once stood — still dot the region.
While there are more, here’s a list of some former Wegman’s grocery stores that have been redeveloped or completely razed and replaced with a new and notable building.
Former Wegmans stores across Rochester
The Britton Road Wegmans, located at 3460-3660 Dewey Ave., opened in 1983. The 74,161-square-foot store replaced one at Northgate Plaza, just up the road on Dewey Avenue, which operated from the 1950s. Before plans to use the property for self-storage, it was used for retail — most recently a Big Lots and Goodwill. The store closed in 2011, with an expanded Mt. Read Boulevard store and a Walmart opening in the nearby plaza.
It’s not the first Wegmans location to be considered for climate-controlled self-storage, either. The former 2111 Hudson Ave. location was a Wegmans first, then later a Chase-Pitkin and Stepping Stones Learning Center. It’s now Extra Space Storage, located off the same parking lot as the active Titus Avenue Wegmans in the Irondequoit Plaza.
The Wegmans at 2200 North Goodman St. opened in 1963 alongside a Topps discount department store. The same address was mentioned as a Kodak site for copier development in 1974. At the same address today is a Holiday Inn Express, constructed in 2002 with an IHOP located nearby.
The Wegmans on Mt. Hope Boulevard was built to serve the nearby Strong Hospital and University of Rochester workforce and student body. The 20,000-square-foot store opened in 1960. While plans to expand the store were announced, it closed in October 2003 as the smallest and oldest store in the chain. The store wasn’t making money, Wegmans said, and an expansion wasn’t going to change that. The College Town mixed-use development with housing, restaurants and retail now stands in its place
When it opened in 1955, the Wegmans at 56 West Ave. was a radical departure from the rest of the chain. Sporting anodized aluminum, black brick and turquoise porcelain-enamel steel panels, the store was the 10th Wegmans location. Amenities in the 24,000-square-foot store included an automatic meat packaging machine, one-way aisles and a raised cement pedestrian walkway in the middle of the parking lot. The store closed in 1987 and is now owned by The Salvation Army.
The Wegmans on East Henrietta Road was replaced by a larger supermarket just around the corner on Calkins Road in August 2008. The location on East Henrietta Road opened at 20,000 square feet in 1964 and was expanded to 54,000 square feet over the years. The old store was split into retail offerings with tenants including the former Beers of the World store, O’Reilly Auto Parts and Upstate Bottle Return. The former Beers of the World location is up for lease, and a 7 Brew Coffee location was proposed for the plaza.
What’s at those sites today
One former location that’s in a state of flux is 818 Brown St., which opened as the first Bulls Head location of the Wegmans chain in 1932. The store had refrigerated food display windows, the first of its kind in Rochester. Today, the vacant site is now an active construction area. The Bulls Head Revitalization Project will reconstruct the intersection, including the flow of Brown Street, as part of a redesign of traffic flow through the area.
Two former Wegmans grocery stores closed in 1995 — one at Midtown Plaza and the other on Culver Road. The neighborhood grocery store at 1433 Culver Road was just 13,000 square feet and the company said it had been unprofitable for years. The building was sold and then leased to Rite Aid Pharmacy; it now operates as a Walgreen’s Pharmacy.
The Midtown Plaza store was the second Wegmans location on Clinton Street, with the first predating the plaza construction. The 1995 closing came after McCurdy’s and B. Forman closed their department stores. The store was roughly 20,000 square feet, contrasting with the super stores that had already become the standard for the chain. In its place now sits a mixed use development with residential, office and retail space — 260 East Broad.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: What happened to Rochester’s old Wegmans stores? See what’s there now
Reporting by Steve Howe, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Steve Howe, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle | USA TODAY Network
