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Date: 5/4/2022
SPRINGFIELD – Big Y has announced plans to build a new Fresh Express Market at 1500 Main St. inside of Tower Square. This will be the first of its kind and will offer the workers and residents of downtown more affordable, nutritious and convenient food options.
According to Colin D’Amour, senior director of Big Y Express, the company has had this project idea in mind for decades.
“This has really been a project in the works for, and I’m not exaggerating, decades. We’ve had a strong presence in Springfield, we’re headquartered here in the city, and we’ve just been eyeing something in the downtown metro Springfield area for decades,” said D’Amour.
He said that plans have come close to fruition before, but that they could never make it work until now.
“It really just felt like the stars aligned on this location,” said D’Amour.
According to D’Amour, the location is the right size, the owners of Tower Square have been very flexible and excited to work with Big Y and Mayor Domenic Sarno has been extremely supportive. American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds will also be used to build the new store.
“Quite frankly, the ARPA funds really helped us to close the gap to make something like this possible,” he said.
The Fresh Express Market will be smaller than the average supermarket, but will still have a variety of foods.
“It’s going to have representation from every department. So the idea being that you are going to be able to do a full supermarket shop here. Obviously, with maybe a little less variety and fewer options, but there will be fresh produce, seafood, fresh meat, deli offerings, frozen food offerings… We believe that we’ll be able to offer the vast majority of what our customers are looking for in a Big Y or in their shopping experience and really offer them a full shopping basket,” said D’Amour.
Although this is a big departure from Big Y’s usual endeavors, D’Amour said that they are confident and looking forward to serving customers in this new way.
“There’s a lot of unknowns going into a project like this, we’re kind of going into some uncharted territory. So it’s an exciting challenge and something that we’ve been looking to do for a long time,” he said. “We’re confident that we’re going to be able to excel with this and support our customers in the metro area.”
D’Amour said that Big Y is aiming to open this Fresh Express Market by early 2023. The timeline will depend on construction costs and higher lead times being seen globally.
“Right now, we don’t have an exact timeline laid out for when we’re going to open. We’re still in the process of working with our contractors,” he said.
When the market does open, D’Amour said he is most excited to see the eclectic group of people visiting and taking advantage of this new shop in the downtown area.
“Downtown, it really has that city feel. It’s one of the few places that you can go in Western Mass. and you really get that big city feel and so I’m excited to see the lights and the vibrancy of that area and the variety of customers that come in,” said D’Amour. “You know, I think that’s part of what’s fun about being in a downtown environment, whether it’s New York City or Boston or Springfield, you just get this eclectic mix of different kinds of people with different kinds of experiences who are looking for different things and you see all of them being able to come together, whether it’s in the business men or women who are working downtown, the residents who are downtown, the folks visiting Tower Square… I think seeing all of those people converge and get to use our market is pretty exciting for me.”