One of the three stores closing, happens to be the one closest to me in Olean, NY- which is the topic of this post. The other two stores closing are in Warren, PA and Painted Post, NY. I'm uncertain what the Painted Post location was before being a Valu, but I'm fairly certain that Warren was a Jamesway.
According to the nearby Bradford Era newspaper, when Valu opened the Olean location in 1970, it was the then largest Valu store in operation. It also occupied the space of 4 former stores in what was then a shopping plaza. One of those spaces was a Loblaw's supermarket- something of which I was surprised to learn.
Looks like a nice store. Sad to see it closing.
ReplyDeleteIt definitely was nice option for the do-it-yourself people. Sadly, Olean has a lot of competition in this department.
DeleteI've never been to a Valu Home Center, but every time I've seen one of their stores, they've always given off an old-timey impression to me. Not in a bad way though, but a quaint way. It's sad Valu is closing your local store, as this seemed like a nice alternative to the big guys for hardware supplies.
ReplyDeleteYou are not wrong, as I get that impression too. Valu has stuck to their roots by offering excellent customer service- one thing that did set them apart from other hardware chains. Even with their logo has an old-timey feel to it. As I mentioned to Retail Retell, I honestly don't fault Valu for closing here as their is a lot of competition.
DeleteLooking at their website, I noticed several of their Home Impressions branded ceiling fans appear to have a very old look to them.
DeleteThat is a large Valu. The ones here are medium sized stores, small compared to a Home Depot or whatnot. In fact, Western Lights Plaza's store is about 1/3 of what was a K-mart that closed in 1996 (and the garden center is now a NYS DMV office, no less).
ReplyDeleteI used to score deals on mis-mixed paint and stain there, I still have a full can of pink deck stain I paid $4 for. They seem to have discontinued it, maybe because they had to shift it from store to store to prevent you from saying "oh you mixed that wrong" and come back a week later and buy it anyways.
Yeah, its size may not have helped this location to be profitable. I did not realize that space was a Kmart. Thanks for sharing that information.
DeleteAnd that is odd about the mismatched paint.
The Warren PA Valu Home Center was a Jamesway in the past,and also a Quality Market .The building went thru a few incidents of major flooding from nearby Conewango Creek in the past also...
ReplyDeleteYes, I thought so. I seem to recall reading an article mentioning flooding there.
ReplyDelete