Todd Clausen

@ToddJClausen

Walmart opens a new 186,000-square-foot store Wednesday in Penfield's Baytowne Plaza.

Small area retailers hope for rush of business with new anchor tenant in place.

Craft brewer and a new restaurant slated to open. Former Walmart space will be subdivided.

Margaret Cooley plans to be one of the first customers inside a mammoth Walmart when it opens Wednesday.

The 92-year-old Penfield resident attended town meetings and ultimately supported the project, which double-downs on Walmart’s commitment to Baytowne Plaza with a new 186,000-square-foot store a few hundred feet from another store slated for a Tuesday closing.

The newer, larger store will employ roughly 350 people, offer a drive-thru pharmacy, vision center, clothes, electronics, home and garden, seasonal items and a full-service grocery area with fresh produce, organics, gluten-free products next to national and Walmart’s private-label items.

It's the first time Baytowne will house such a grocery area since Tops Friendly Markets left the plaza roughly 10 years ago, leaving the Eastway Wegmans near the point of Empire Boulevard and Bay Road as the area's primary grocer.

"I like the idea of having a choice of where I can do my grocery shopping," Cooley said. "I live on a fixed income and don't get any increases from Social Security. I don't get any increases in my pension, so I find it is important that I shop so I can save as many bucks as possible."

The new "super" Walmart opens Wednesday following a morning ceremony that ends several years of planning and a final rush over the last five weeks to get thousands of items on store shelves, racks and other areas.

Store manager Kurt Spindler, hired by Walmart in 1991 to stock shelves at the older Penfield store, has spent the last 17 years as a store manager.

"I still remember like it was yesterday, where I walked into that building and said, 'Hey, my name is Kurt. Where do you want me to go?'" the Fairport resident said. "It's nostalgic but it's also exciting. I always knew that this was what I wanted to do ... ."

Hopes for Baytowne

Walmart is expected to breathe new life into Baytowne Plaza, which lies in Penfield and has been undergoing a transformation in recent years. Corporate woes forced Blockbuster and Fashion Bug out. Tops left, too.

Royal Dynasty took its loyal following to another location, opening a new restaurant a short drive south on Empire Boulevard.

Second-generation success at Royal Dynasty

The DiMarco Group, which includes John DiMarco and sons, John DiMarco II and Joel DiMarco, were left trying to figure out how to replace those tenants and bring people back to plaza.

They decided to carve out a part of the old Tops site for a street of shops. They began purchasing land adjacent to the plaza on Empire Boulevard, and demolished the buildings. A Pizza Hut in that area will be moved to a location inside the plaza. A Chili's restaurant will be built in its place.

The DiMarco's drew up a new site plan that included subdividing the older Walmart store into four separate sections. They also have plans to build five other free-standing buildings, ranging from 4,500 to 20,000 square feet.

"Personally love (that) the plaza is expanding," said Susan Katz Aser, a Webster resident and local realtor.

Slowly new retailers joined the likes of Baytowne Liquor, CVS and Planet Fitness. Once Upon a Child, Napa Wood Fired Pizza, Hand and Stone and Salad Etc. opened. UR Medicine moved into a new 10,800-square-foot medical center.

Which Craft Brews, a craft brewer, is scheduled to open in the street of shops area this fall. Brand Point Lane was widened. A new traffic light was added at the roads meeting point with Empire Boulevard. Acres of trees were cut and a natural berm created to help prevent noise from spilling onto neighboring properties.

"What we are counting on is the overall draw of the plaza," said Peter Nowak, who bought a liquor store in the plaza about six years after a meeting with the DiMarcos. He renamed the business BayTown liquor. "We knew that the plaza wasn't in great shape. You had to be patient. There was a process. Everything you are seeing now, I was able to see six years ago. It wasn't hard for me to buy into it."

The plan has been to reinvent the center so people can walk around to various shops inside the plaza, with the new Walmart attracting more people and tenants to the area, said John DiMarco II.

He added that Baytowne is in talks with as many as 15 possible tenants. Currently, there are 19 areas in the plaza that are vacant, excluding the old Walmart and any of the space that has yet to be built.

The plaza originally opened in the late 1980s and offered about 284,000 square feet of space, a number that's growing to 505,000 square feet of space. Nearly 24,000 vehicles pass the area daily.

"The reason to redevelop this 'super' Walmart and build a new store here was to re-engage the rest of this to be more retail ... a true place where people could shop without having to get in their car to get from place to place," DiMarco said. "The activity that was spurred here over the last few months is what I would have hoped when we put this plan together five years ago."

Many of the plaza's retailers have been anxiously waiting for Walmart's newest store. Bonnie Camarella, who operated Salad’s Etc., couldn't wait any longer. She closed her shop about two weeks ago and is working on a catering business.

"When I signed the lease, there were all these things promised that were going to go into different spots, but nothing ever came," she said. "Things started out really rocky. There was no signage. Winter kind of stunk there."

She said her business was zapped when Napa Wood Fired Pizza opened in a nearby location earlier this year.

Walmart's effect

Whatever goes into the plaza needs to be carefully considered, said Paul Ellickson, a professor at the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business who has extensively researched the impact of Walmart supercenters on other neighboring businesses.

"They do drive a lot of traffic," he said about Walmart. "You are going to see a lot more people coming to it as a destination."

New Walmarts, he added, tend to push smaller competitors and those offering similar things out of business.

But when Walmart opens a supercenter with groceries, it places a similar pressure on larger grocers. Those new Walmarts can pull as much as 20 percent of a supermarket's revenues away, Ellickson said.

"I suspect that won't happen to Wegmans," he said. "I don't think they share a lot of the same consumers. Wegmans is kind of upper-middle class targeted, a more wealthy consumer. Walmart is sort of targeting more middle income and below."

He said Wegmans would likely promote things that the new Walmart is unlikely to offer. Prepared foods and the happy hour socials for seniors in its Market Café might be two such things.

Ellickson did say existing grocers are reluctant to change their prices when faced with competition from Walmart.

Wegmans spokeswoman Jo Natale said the locally based grocer won't change course as the result of new competition. Wegmans opens its 91st store Sunday in the Baltimore area.

"Instead we focus on our employees and our customers and the things that are important to them, especially: incredible service, help with meals, and consistent low prices on the things families buy every week," she said in a statement.

'Super' store

The new Penfield Walmart has a similar feel to other area supercenters with a open layout and a diverse offerings of products and food.

Fresh fruits and vegetables will greet visitors. Bakers will make fresh goods. There's a meat counter, a large freezer and refrigerated sections, too.

The grocer also has rebranded its organic products with purple labels found on items as a can of organic tomato basil soup ($1.98) and a box of organic mac and cheese ($1.38). There is a 12-foot section of gluten-free products, along with dozens of gluten-free tags identifying such products in the store's aisles.

"I think most food vendors have been smart enough to realize the trend over the last three years and have been activity looking for what the customers have been looking for," Spindler said.

Walmart is taking its groceries upscale

The grocery area is about one-third of the store with wide and easy to navigate aisles. Workers from other area stores have been helping to get the new store ready.

The new store has several skylights with sensors that control the amount of light inside the store based on weather conditions. Large underground tanks help collect runoff water and disperse it into the ground.

The store also has hair salon. The pharmacy is located next to a vision center in front of the store. There's an empty space for another retailer near the store's entrance, not far from shirts and hoodies branded with Penfield, Rochester and Webster Schroeder.

Spindler has run the store in Macedon for the last eight years. He said customers would travel from Webster, Penfield and other areas to shop at the Macedon supercenter.

"These days, money isn't just about money," he said. "Time is money. If you can save somebody 20 minutes on a round trip to the grocery store and save them 10 (percent) to 15 percent on the cost of the same thing that they can buy at our competitors — that's worth something."

TCLAUSEN@Gannett.com

'Super' Walmart

Opening Day: A flag ceremony will begin at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, followed by a ribbon cutting at the new Brandt Point Drive store.

Big Family Welcome: Local residents are invited to a welcome celebration with family activities and free food samples, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Busing: RTS has announced that it will detour Route 42 Parsells to provide service to the new Walmart, turning down Brandt Point Drive to the store and then continuing through Baytowne Plaza and exiting onto Empire Boulevard.

Facebook: Walmart does have a social media page devoted to the Baytowne store, called Walmart Webster. For more, go to bit.ly/2c8rse2.