I'm not sure how I missed this, but someone left a July 6th Syracuse Post-Standard in the waiting room at Guthrie, and it had a story on the East Hill Plaza P&C being sold.
When Tops bought P&C out of bankruptcy, they had seven stores that had to operate separately, with an eye toward them being sold eventually. This deal puts three of those stores, in Ithaca, Sayre, and Cortland, into the hands of former employees of Penn Traffic, P&lC's old owner.
It doesn't, however, include the Triphammer Cayuga Mall P&C.
(And no, East Hill Plaza isn't in Dryden, but it's just outside - and I run into plenty of Dryden residents there.)
Posted by simon at July 22, 2011 12:32 PM in economy
Hi,
"It doesn't, however, include the Triphammer Mall P&C."
I think you must mean the Cayuga Mall, there's no grocery store at Triphammer Mall.
I'm planning to write about this, as well. I think it's a travesty. Basically, these stores are being handed back to the very management team that ran Penn Traffic into the ground.
The only possible saving grace is that they'll be running the tiny handful of profitable stores that remained in areas with a strong enough Tops presence to raise red flags at the FTC. (There's still no good reason to have forced Tops to divest them, though.)
As a tiny, independent chain, they won't have most of the bargaining power of a Tops or Wegmans. They won't be able to offer most of the same specials. And for those who were hoping to take advantage of the Tops gas discount, it's never going to happen now.
There was another buyer hypothetically interested in the Cayuga Mall store, but honestly, I think that one will just close. It was barely surviving across from the northeast Tops, whereas the southwest Tops and Wegmans somehow both do fine right next door.