Price Cutter improves Commercial Street store

The Price Cutter grocery store at 712 W. Commercial at the southwest corner of Grant Ave-nue and Commercial Street is undergoing major interior improvements.

According to Price Cutter President and Chief Executive Officer Larry Willis, the Com-mercial Street store is possibly the oldest Price Cutter in operation. The building that houses the store is owned by Safeway, and originally was a Safeway store. Willis said the building was built sometime in the 1950s, and the renovations are something he's wanted to do since coming to Springfield a year and a half ago.

"When I came on board, I went into that store and said, I'm ashamed of this store,'" Willis said. "I believe every store should be clean and have good working equipment in it, so that when a customer comes in, they can shop that store as well as they can any store."

The interior renovations in-clude new decor, new equipment, new check-out stands, new floor tile, a new and larger customer service desk and new holding cases for dairy, meat and produce. Plans also include a historic mural, featuring im-ages of Springfield's downtown in the early 1900s.

Willis said the renovations, which are being performed by Harold Gray Construction Co., are designed to provide a more pleasant shopping experience for patrons.

"There are a lot of people that shopped in that store that, I'm sure, before we went through and put in new dairy cases, new freezer cases, they probably were going somewhere else to buy their frozen or their dairy items," Willis said.

"When we put in new dairy cases, some of the items we put in one day were almost sold out the next day, which told me that people wanted to buy those items, they just didn't feel comfortable," Willis said.

Willis said cost is one factor that prevented the company from simply building a new location. But also, he said, the existing 21,000-square-foot building is a good fit for the area it serves.

"That store is big enough for the area that you could just about get everything that you need in it, and offer a variety that customers need," Willis said. He said the majority of the merchandise in all the company's stores is the same, but he said for some products, it depends on the area and the customer base served by each individual grocery store.

The company hopes eventually to put a small hot deli in the front of the store, and to offer limited bakery items.

"I think that would be good for that area," he added.

In addition to the interior improvements to the store, Willis said, Price Cutter purchased a small empty building, which he called an "eyesore," that was located on the corner of the outer lot and has since demolished it.

"We eventually hope to put a convenience store there with a gas station," he said.

Willis said there's no time frame for any of the improvements slated for the store. He declined to put a dollar value on the renovations, but he said they are being paid for by the company's internally generated funds and not by loans. He added that the company has redone the decor of the Division Street store, and it has done several remodeling jobs in its other stores.

"You have to kind of just take your time doing these things and keep adding value to the stores so that when consumers come in, they think they're getting a good value," Willis said.

But what he doesn't want customers to think is that the renovations in the Commercial Street store and others will mean higher prices at the check-out stand.

"The interesting thing is that a lot of times, when you start fixing stores up, the first thing the consumer thinks is that you're raising prices, and that's not what we're doing at all," Willis said.

"If you don't have a clean environment where you think that the food that you're purchasing is the same quality that you'll get somewhere else, you'll go ahead and drive the distance" to shop elsewhere, Willis said.

He added that with the highly competitive grocery market, which has intensified with the proliferation of Wal-Mart Supercenters, the company works hard to lower its prices and keep them down.

"It's probably one of the most competitive marketplaces I've ever been in," he said. Price Cutter has 26 stores in operation in Missouri, and a new store is under construction in the 65 Marketplace development in Ozark.