WELLINGTON — The Main Street Market offers down-home, friendly service to this town’s 6,000 residents and donates to local churches, schools, the food bank and the library.
Also, last year it generated more than $140,000 in sales taxes for the town coffers, a hefty sum for an area hobbled by the recession.
But what the Main Street Market, open about five years, hasn’t done is change people’s spending habits or compete with the large grocery-chain stores just south in Fort Collins.
Consequently, the town’s only supermarket will shut its doors May 18, putting 38 people out of a job. Also, a branch of the Warren Federal Credit Union — located in the market — will close down, as may the store’s Good Day Pharmacy.
“I’ve seen a lot of our elderly customers walking from their homes just to get to our pharmacy,” said John Leeb, Main Street Market’s manager for nearly five years. “I don’t know what they are going to do.”
Leeb told his employees last week that the store was closing. Among those given the word was assistant manager Travis Vieira, who also happens to be the town’s mayor.
“It was a blow to everyone,” Leeb said. “There were quite a few tears.”
The store’s owner, Panhandle Cooperative Association, said last week it decided to shutter Main Street Market after years of changing the store’s pricing and product mix and reaching out to the community.
But the pull of big stores in neighboring Fort Collins was too much, said Panhandle president Bob Pile.
In June, King Soopers opened a Marketplace megastore on North College Avenue, about 12 miles to the southwest. It is adjacent to a complex that includes an Albertsons grocery store.
“We have enjoyed the community of Wellington and have some very loyal customers, but with the close proximity of Fort Collins, we have been unable to change the shopping habits of many people who shop at the bigger stores,” Pile said. “We have struggled to produce the sales volume necessary to keep the store open.”
Panhandle officials said the store generated about $5.6 million in sales last year.
Wellington Town Councilman Jack Brinkhoff said the town is launching a last-ditch effort to preserve the store. The town council has offered to meet with Panhandle bosses in Nebraska to weigh options.
“We want to bounce some ideas off of them, maybe close the store for a while and come back with a reduced size and other cutbacks,” Brinkhoff said. “It’s just a huge blow for us, with far-reaching implications.”
The town, which collected about $415,000 in sales taxes in 2011, should be able to absorb the store’s closure for another year, Brinkhoff said. But Wellington faces the prospect of not being able to lure another major grocery store in the near future.
“Jeez, would another store even want to come here after this?” Brinkhoff said.
Wellington suffers from the problems of being a bedroom community with few primary jobs, said chamber-of-commerce member Wendell Nelson.
Many residents live in town but work and spend most of their dollars in Fort Collins, not investing in the long-term future of Wellington, Nelson said.
“There is just a large contingent of people who sleep here, but that’s about it,” he said. “Otherwise, they just walk away from the town.
“We have to wake up and figure out what can we do to sustain this town’s growth and job base.”
The store has donated almost $40,000 to local causes, including the food bank, Leeb said. Several men who labored at a local farm run by the Denver Rescue Mission also work at the store, trying to re-establish themselves in society, Leeb said.
“This store has given so much back to the community, I just hate (that) it’s going to close,” said Maureen Holmberg, a Wellington resident since 1977.
She was pushing a cart through the store Friday, saying she was going to buy as much as she could over the next several weeks to try to help save the store.
“It’s so close for everyone here, and the people here are so nice,” she said. “You just can’t let something like this slip away.
“But I guess that’s just business.”
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
