Poughkeepsie to Get First Center-City Supermarket in Over a Decade

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. -- The planning board here has this week approved a proposal to construct the first supermarket to be located in the city's center in almost 15 years.

The planners voted 5 to 0 on Tuesday in favor of the project to build a 14,000-square-foot store, which will be called Tower Food Plaza and located on the 400 block of Main Street, near newly built stores and apartments in a once run-down area. Construction could start in 2006.

The supermarket will be owned and operated by Francisco Del Moral and Reyna Garcia of Casa Latina, a smaller grocery store catering to the city's burgeoning Hispanic population. Besides Casa Latina, Poughkeepsie has only small corner stores to address residents' food needs.

According to city officials, the new supermarket will feature a butcher's counter and fresh produce. The same site for the proposed store once housed an A&P store. Poughkeepsie's last supermarket, Grand Union on Main, shut down in the early 1990s.