Mayor writes letter to ALDI, Bottom Dollar

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

After the announcement of the Bottom Dollar Food grocery stores in the city closing, Mayor John A. McNally sent letters to both ALDI Inc. and Bottom Dollar LLC, especially expressing concern about the stand-alone store at 2649 Glenwood Ave.

The property once served as a public park before it was transferred to Bottom Dollar.

“Now that the city has been made aware of your intention to close this location, and the purpose for the original transfer is no longer served, the city respectfully asks that upon the closing of the store, the property be transferred back to the city of Youngstown,” McNally wrote to Bottom Dollar.

Last week, Bottom Dollar’s parent company, Delhaize Group, announced it had entered into a $15 million transaction for all 66 locations to ALDI. ALDI has not said what it plans to do with the locations. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2015.

“I think [Bottom Dollar] had a positive effect on that [South Side] neighborhood,” McNally said. “If ALDI is not interested in it, we are interested in finding another viable use for that [location].”

The Glenwood Avenue store is not in a plaza like the two other Bottom Dollars in the city on Midlothian Boulevard and Mahoning Avenue, which also concerns McNally.

“I am concerned about a vacant structure existing,” he said.

The hope is ALDI reopens the locations under the ALDI name. McNally points out in his letter to ALDI that these locations were considered “food deserts” for many years and “it would be detrimental to the citizens of Youngstown if this again became the reality.”

McNally said the city has had some inquiries from “interested entities” in providing a grocer in the Bottom Dollar locations and other areas in the city.