UPDATE: Big Y called the media Monday April 29 to say NO decision has been made. Click here for update.
ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS
The Big Y grocery store in Ansonia will eventually close as the company prepares a new store on Route 34 in Derby, a city official confirmed Friday.
“We understand from ownership of the Ansonia Shopping Center that Big Y is planning to relocate to Derby. Their space will be available for lease,” Ansonia Economic Development Director Sheila O’Malley said in an email.
“Ownership is working diligently with the full support of the mayor and his team to secure the right replacement. The other tenants in the center are thriving and we are confident about the positive opportunity this presents for the Plaza, the City of Ansonia and its residents.”
The closing date for the Ansonia store was not available Friday morning. Two messages were left Friday with Big Y’s corporate offices in Springfield, Mass.
A Connecticut real estate broker from a firm connected to the property owner also confirmed the closing.
“We are working with some prospects to back fill the Big Y space, but I am not in the position to disclose anything at this time,” Dominick Musilli, a managing partner with TRUE Commercial Real Estate, LLC of Westport, said in an email.
Big Y officially opened a Bridgeport Avenue store in Shelton in late 2016. The company also plans to open a store in Derby, at the site of a former Walmart at 656 New Haven Ave.
The under-construction Derby store is three miles from the Ansonia store on Main Street. The Derby store is supposed to open in the fall, according to Andrew Baklik, Derby Mayor Rich Dziekan’s chief of staff.
Alan G. Schwartz, of AGS Ansonia LLC, the New York City company that owns the shopping center, would not confirm the store was closing. He said such information would have to come from Big Y itself.
Information about the Ansonia store was first reported Thursday night by an anti-Cassetti administration anonymous Facebook page that posted a link to a commercial broker’s marketing material from 2018 for the shopping center.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
Donate.ValleyIndy.org during The Great Give May 1 and May 2.