Quality Market is leaving its County Fair Mall location, officials with the local grocery store confirmed Thursday.
Store owner Dan Stezenko says Quality Market made the decision to leave after it was unable to work out a new long-term lease agreement with property owners. While the store is closing, Stezenko said none of the current employees are expected to lose their jobs.
The family is getting set to open their new location on Golf Links and Oliver Roads near the end of July, and that location will employ many of the employees now working at the County Fair Mall location.
"We’re transferring most of our staff from this store to one of our other two stores," Stezenko said. "We’re not losing anyone. We were going to have three stores, in which case we would have had a whole new staff, but it didn’t work out that way so it is going to work out pretty well that at least we get to keep everybody."
Quality Market has been at its County Fair Mall location for more than 15 years. The store will move out of that location by July 20.
The new Quality Market store will have its grand opening possibly one or two weeks after that closure, however, Stezenko said he doesn’t have a firm date as of yet because construction is still ongoing.
Many employees were hopeful they would be able to stay in the County Fair Mall location, but Stezenko said most were aware that moving away from that location was possible.
Stezenko added that he couldn’t discuss the terms of the lease that the store was looking for, but did say they were looking for something long-term.
Some customers who live near the grocery said they were disappointed that a grocery store in their area would close down.
"I think it’s going to have a big impact on this mall," said area resident Robert Clark. "I live close to here and it’s easy for me to just walk over here."
Clark added that he wasn’t shocked by the store’s decision to move out of County Fair Mall.
"When they’re building a new store, you wonder just how many grocery stores this town can support."
