There was both very good and very bad news for the Ellenville economy this past week.
The very bad news first.
The main grocery store in the village, the Ellenville ShopRite, is closing no later than next October. The 46,700-square-foot anchor store at 1 ShopRite Boulevard off Route 209 has been operating in the village for several decades. It opens at 6 a.m. and closes at 10 p.m. seven days a week.
ShopRite is a cooperative with $18.6 billion in sales in 2022. It operates about 300 stores in the Northeast, and had been shedding underperforming facilities. The owner of the Ellenville store, ShopRite Supermarkets, Inc. owns 35 stores, including the ones in New Paltz and Kingston.
The very good news is that Chicago-based Cresco Labs, which calls itself the “number-one U.S. wholesaler of branded cannabis.” has secured a ten-year commercial mortgage with a principal amount of up to $25.3 million at an initial rate at close of 8.43 percent to build a cultivation and manufacturing facility at the former Schrade plant at 11 Aluminum Drive just outside Ellenville. The Cresco groundbreaking on the facility took place last October, but construction had been delayed.
In May 2022, the company was induced through a $28-million reduction in property taxes over 15 years and ten million dollars in sales-tax exemptions for the construction of a $200-million facility that was touted as creating an eventual 375 jobs. Last October Creso founder Charles Bachtell promised 75 jobs by this past spring.
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