By Madina Toure
A Waldbaum’s store in Howard Beach and a Pathmark store in Springfield Gardens are the next of six Queens grocery stores formerly owned by the Great Atlantic Pacific & Tea Company to be converted into Stop & Shop stores.
The Howard Beach store, located at 156-01 Cross Bay Blvd., will be closed for roughly two weeks for remodeling. It is scheduled to open Oct. 30. The Springfield Gardens store, at 134-40 Springfield Blvd., will open Friday.
A&P owns Pathmark and Waldbaum’s. Stop & Shop is acquiring 25 A&P stores for $146 million. On Oct. 8, Stop & Shop announced it would begin converting the stores. Groups of up to five stores will close temporarily for about seven days. The conversions are expected to be completed by Nov. 13.
“Stop & Shop is committed to improving the overall shopping experience in these 25 stores to meet the quality, selection and savings that customers have come to expect from us,” Don Sussman, president of Stop & Shop’s New York Metro Division, said in a statement.
In July, A&P announced it had agreed to sell 120 stores for about $600 million. The company said it secured financing of $100 million and voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The extent of the remodels and addition of new amenities will be dependent on the store’s needs. Each store will reopen as a Stop & Shop store and receive improvements such as modern décor, updated refrigeration systems, new lighting and state-of-the-art technology.
Pharmacies and banks within the store locations will stay open during the conversion process.
In the first round of Stop & Shop store conversions, the Pathmark store at 92-10 Atlantic Ave. in Ozone Park reopened Oct. 16. Stores in East Hampton, L.I., Southampton, L.I., the Bronx and Brooklyn also reopened that day.
The Waldbaum’s stores at 112-15 Beach Channel Drive in Belle Harbor, 213-15 26th Ave. in Bay Terrace and the Pathmark store at 31-06 Farrington St. in Whitestone will be converted into Stop & Shop stores in the future.
Reach reporter Madina Toure by e-mail at mtour
