2 | ARMONK SQUARE OCTOBER 19, 2015 | VOL. 51, No. 42
14 | 2015 CFO OF THE YEAR AWARDS
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AS A&P LEAVES, OTHER GROCERS ENTER BY EVAN FALLOR evan@westfairinc.com
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A FANCY FOR FLIGHT Millie Hernandez-Becker inside Hangar M at Westchester County Airport. Photo by John Golden
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s A&P ends its 156-year tenure as a supermarket staple in the Northeast, the birth and expansion of several other grocery chains in Westchester County are underway. Since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July, A&P’s parent company, The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., has seen nearly all of its 25 A&P and Pathmark banner stores in Westchester sold. Acme Markets Inc., a Pennsylvania-based subsidiary of Albertsons Cos., opened its first store in Westchester on Oct. 11 at the site of the former A&P at 103 Knollwood Road in Greenburgh. According to Acme officials, it will acquire 71 A&P stores that operate under the A&P, Pathmark and Super Fresh banners. Acme will acquire 12
Westchester A&P stores and 16 New York stores in total, including sites in Yorktown Heights, Thornwood, Yonkers, Mohegan Lake, Goldens Bridge, Bronxville, Rye Brook, Briarcliff Manor, Scarsdale, Greenburgh, New Rochelle, Shrub Oak, Pleasant Valley, Hopewell Junction and Brewster. According to the company, all Acme stores will be open by the end of November. Acme spokeswoman Danielle D’Ella said each store will typically be closed for “just a few days” while they are renovated and converted. The company will reopen locations first in Westchester before those farther south. “The company is on an aggressive timeline to convert all locations to the Acme banner within the next two months,” D’Ella said. “We intend to hire/ » » A&P, page 6
Westchester energy buying program enlists 21 municipalities BY COLLEEN WILSON cwilson@westfairinc.com
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wenty-one municipalities in Westchester County have signed on to participate in a pilot program to negotiate electricity prices at a lower rate for groups of residents and small commercial businesses in those localities. Sustainable Westchester Inc., a nonprofit consortium of about 40 dues-paying municipalities in the county, is heading the program. Its officials are preparing a request for proposals, expected to be released by the end of the month, for one energy-supplying service company to create an electricity contract for
the pilot program’s participants. This energy-buying strategy, called community choice aggregation, differs from the traditional way of paying for utilities in that groups of consumers will be in the same rate contract rather than having variable rates that are susceptible to change. The driving force behind starting community choice aggregation is simple, according to Leo Wiegman, executive director of Sustainable Westchester: “We asked for it.” “We being the municipalities in Westchester,” he explained, “saw this program helping people save money and have smarter, better energy choices in other states.” This thinking, Wiegman said, is what
prompted a bill, introduced in the state Senate in May 2013, that would have started a similar program, but was vetoed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in December 2014. In his veto letter, Cuomo said he supported the intent of the bill, but said it was duplicating efforts already being made by the state Public Service Commission. Cuomo referred the proposal to the commission, which approved the current program in February. Six other states — Massachusetts, Ohio, New Jersey, Rhode Island, California and Illinois — have implemented a version of community choice aggregation. Participants in the Cleveland program, started in 2013, have » » ENERGY, page 6