WISE BUYS TO FILL VOID LEFT BY AMES; DISCOUNT RETAILER WILL OPEN ITS FIFTH UPSTATE STORE IN HAMILTON IN NOVEMBER.(Local)
From: The Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) Date: September 24, 2004
Byline: Glenn Coin Staff writer
When you do $11,000 worth of Christmas shopping, it's nice to have a discount store close to home.
That's why Sue McVaugh is looking forward to the early November opening of a Wise Buys store in Hamilton. Ever since the Ames Department Store on Route 12B closed in 2002, her six-church consortium has had to shuttle about 30 volunteers and hundreds of toys from Oneida's Wal-Mart back to Hamilton.
"We're thrilled," said McVaugh, chairwoman of the Mid-York Inter-Faith Holiday Project, which buys presents for needy families each year. "It's going to make it so much easier for us to shop locally. And it's nice to say to our (donors) that we're going to spend this money in the area."
Wise Buys, a year-old, four-unit retail chain, has confirmed plans to open in the first two weeks of November in the former Ames space. It will sell clothing, housewares, shoes, toys and other items, said the company's chief financial officer, Tom Scozzafava. Inside the store will be a Payless Shoe Source and Kay-Bee Toys & Hobby Shop outlets, he said. The store is about 43,000 square feet.
"It's a well-rounded department store, with a focus on name-brand products at value prices," Scozzafava said.
No specific date has been set, he said.
The Hamilton store will be the fifth for Gouverneur-based Wise Buys. The four other stores - one each in Canton, Tupper Lake, Pulaski and Gouverneur - have taken up residence in former Ames stores, too. Ames went bankrupt in 2002 and closed all of its stores.
Hamilton is a natural fit for Wise Buys, said Scozzafava, a former Wall Street financier who moved back to his hometown of Gouverneur after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"Our cup of tea is the smaller, rural towns," he said. "Our management is from those types of towns."
Mayor Charlie Getchonis said village residents are eager to do their shopping in town instead of driving to Oneida.
"Just about everybody is sure looking forward to it," Getchonis said. "Ames is really missed. There were a lot of people who used to stop in there because (Ames) had just a little bit of everything."
The Wise Buys store will employ 40 to 50 people, Scozzafava said. Managers and some other employees already have been hired, he said.
Scozzafava predicts that Wise Buys will be successful in Hamilton.
"We think we're going to meet the needs of the local community," he said, "and hopefully provide some goods that are no longer available since Ames went out."
Wise Buys is the second New York chain store to come to Hamilton this year. Kinney Drugs, another Gouverneur-based company that specializes in rural markets, built an 11,000-square-foot building across the road from the Wise Buys building.
ALL POSTED BY AMERICAN_PSYCHO IS EITHER FACT OR OPINION.
