Broadway Market Save-A-Lot awaits funds

Lyn Johnson shook her head as she looked around the nearly empty Save-A-Lot store in Broadway Market.

He remembered all the promises made by local leaders in the wake of the May 14 massacre, when the closure of Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue left residents in a food desert with one less place to buy fresh groceries and get their prescription medications.

“It was just TV. It was just advertising,” he said.

If it were anything else, he said, someone would do something to keep the Save-A-Lot store in the Broadway Fillmore neighborhood open — one of the few traditional supermarkets still operating on Buffalo’s entire East Side. Johnson believes the store is being forced to close because it is in a poor, black neighborhood.

“If this had happened in town or another neighborhood, we wouldn’t have had to worry, they would have given him money like they did Braymiller,” Johnson said.

Johnson was referring to a $561,317 zero-interest loan to Braymiller Market on Ellicott Street, which has struggled to stay open.

It’s a question Save-A-Lot owner Ron Horrigan asked himself.

Horrigan is in talks with Broadway Market and the city to get an influx of cash. After selling his inventory, he closed the store. But he said he’s willing to restock and reopen it if they can come to an agreement.

He declined to say exactly how much money he is seeking.

“I think we should get the same amount (as Braymiller). They wanted to keep Braymiller there, and the city wants to keep me here,” Horrigan said. “But the city says they’re broke, too.”

The funds would give Horrigan working capital, allow him to restock and reinvest in the store, pay salaries, hire a security guard and pay $60,000 in back rent, he said.

Horrigan had delayed improvements to the store until after the completion of the planned $45 million renovation of Broadway Market.

“They want to move our entire wall, so they would have to move our entire frozen food section 10 feet,” Horrigan said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

With the Save-A-Lot store set to close this week, most of the shelves are empty. The remaining unusual items are marked down to $1, and the store’s hours have been reduced to just four hours a day.

Even if an agreement were reached to keep the store open, it would have to restock and win back customers who have been put off in recent weeks by empty shelves and the impending closure.

In January, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced the Healthy Food Financing Initiative Reauthorization Act, legislation that would provide $50 million per year in mandatory federal funding for a USDA program that offers loans and grants to encourage grocery stores to locate in underserved communities.

But with so much effort being put into attracting grocery stores to food deserts, why isn’t more being done to save the one that already exists?

Councilman Mitch Nowakowski said the prospect of losing Save-A-Lot must be weighed against what might be in store for a revitalized Broadway Market, which is expected to be completed in the next three to five years, and what is best for the market amid the $45 million windfall. Horrigan has only two years left on its lease — a topic that is being discussed as part of negotiations with the city.

“The fact is we have to have vision and strength of character to anticipate the market,” he said. “There will be ups and downs, and there will be growing pains. So we have to make sure and look carefully at how far we have to go to keep them at that level, or whether it’s more advantageous to have a clean separation.”

The renovation plans would transform Broadway Market into a multicultural fresh food market, featuring regional and international foods, and add restaurants and entertainment.

“I think once (the Braymiller deal) happened, I knew other people were going to use it as leverage,” Nowakowski said.

Nowakowski stressed that the Braymiller loan would have to be repaid if the store went bankrupt, and said there is no one-size-fits-all approach from neighborhood to neighborhood.

“If he leaves, I would be sad, because I don’t want my constituents to lose something they already had,” Nowakowski said. “But Aldi is technically right across the street, so it wouldn’t put the immediate residents in too much danger, it would just give them one less option.”

Broadway Market manager Kathy Peterson pointed to other neighborhood markets, such as the halal grocer Buffalo Fresh, located across the street from Broadway Market, and said the market itself has full-service meat and fish counters, as well as a bakery and produce stand open two days a week.

“If he were to leave, we would talk to them about opening more often. It’s the same thing with the bakery,” she said. “We have a lot of prepared foods. We have so many items in the market that people can come and buy if Save-A-Lot closes.”

But residents said there are some things they can’t get at Aldi, the market or halal grocery stores in the community.

“Aldi doesn’t carry the name brands, and if they do, the prices are very high,” said Jackie Hudson, a Save-A-Lot customer at the market and a senior who uses a scooter to get around. “Aldi is reasonable in some ways, but in other ways it’s just as bad as the rest of the stores.”

Hudson said Save-A-Lot fills an important need in the community by providing nutritious food at affordable prices.

“We’re going to miss it a lot. We don’t have anything like it in the neighborhood,” Hudson said.