Save-A-Lot owner sees potential move from Renaissance Plaza as a plus

The store is one of four that submitted proposals to CRDA in the authority’s new move to bring a full-service grocery to the city, describing it as an end to the city’s status as a food desert.

If the CRDA board backs one of the other proposals, well, he’s going to have to see how things go. But there is a possibility that the Save-A-Lot location in Renaissance Plaza would stop making economic sense if there is a new, subsidized grocery around the corner, Rinnier said in a recent interview.

“We would have to reassess our position,” he said. “I do believe Atlantic City is a one-grocery-store town.”

Just changing locations could have an impact on the store’s reputation, Rinnier said. There have been multiple complaints from customers about panhandling and other problems at the Renaissance Plaza location.

“Renaissance Plaza’s tough,” he said. “It’s intimidating to some of our customers to come in and shop at the store.”

A new, more vibrant store could allow a fresh start, with rules outlined for employees, shoppers and others.

“We can have more discipline with staff at a new location and start off on the right foot,” Rinnier said.

Shoppers have raised issues with Renaissance Plaza for years.

Residents have complained about the behavior of drug and alcohol users who hang out around the Pay Less Liquor store there and beg for money from those going to the grocery store so they can buy more alcohol.

They also have sex, drink and do drugs in the open view of youngsters at a nearby preschool, residents say.

Shoppers say they don’t feel safe, and don’t understand why the behavior is allowed.

Community activist and Zoning Board member Andra Williams has video of a man who took down his pants and cleaned himself across the street from the Gateway Center Headstart Early Education Center at New York and Arctic avenues.

“It’s sickening when the children from the school peer out of the window and can look at a man indisposed, cleaning himself,” Williams said. “We have to get that taken care of. When we can look at a man buttocks out and literally wash himself in public, it’s horrible.”

Renaissance Plaza takes up the block bounded by Atlantic, Arctic, New York and Kentucky avenues. It is just a block from City Hall, the county building and the public library.

Police Chief James Sarkos is asked regularly about what the city and the Police Department are doing to stem antisocial behavior there and protect families and children.

Special police officers and social workers have been assigned to Renaissance Plaza, officials said at a recent CitiStat meeting where residents and business owners bring problems to officials.

A city social worker has devised a plan to address the issues there, and around the nearby AtlantiCare and Gateway complexes, according to Director of Health and Human Services Jarrod Barnes.

Barnes said the social work plan is to offer services and encourage people not to loiter in the area.

Sarkos has said the plaza is private property so the police have limited jurisdiction there. But he said there are now two shifts of neighborhood coordination officers and they will spend time helping to deal with the problems there.

Just last week, officers arrested someone observed making a drug sale in the plaza, the Police Department said.

The CRDA has sought for years to get a new full-service grocery store in the city. There are multiple small food stores in neighborhoods throughout the city, but the last full-service store shut down well over a decade ago.

In 2021, CRDA agreed to spend $18.7 million to build a 44,000-square-foot supermarket at Baltic and Indiana avenues, leasing it for $1 a year for a new ShopRite to be operated by Village Super Market. State officials gathered for a high-profile groundbreaking, but nothing else happened for more than a year.

By late 2022, after years of negotiations, the talks ended and CRDA said it would seek new proposals.

This spring, four companies submitted proposals for a new contract, including Save-A-Lot under the company name Save Hilly Stores and a new proposal from Village Super Market. Also submitting proposals were JAS Group Enterprise and Bailing International Firm.

JAS Group’s plan includes 120 apartments, along with a grocery store, while Bailing International’s plan calls for a 55,000-square-foot facility. Most of that would be for a grocery store, along with room for restaurants and other food vendors.

So far, the CRDA board has not discussed the proposals at its meetings.

Rinnier said he expected a decision by August.

“We’re going to be patient,” he said.

Karen Martin, director of communications and marketing for the CRDA, said she expects an update on the proposals at the Sept. 19 meeting of the authority board of directors. As of Tuesday, no agenda had been posted for that meeting, which is set to be held over the phone at 2 p.m.

Rinnier said he was under a confidentiality agreement that prevented him from talking about the proposal his company submitted in detail, but he cited the company’s work in Camden as a model for what he would like to do in Atlantic City.

In 2020, Rinnier said, the company acquired 14 new stores, including one in Camden. Soon after, the company bought a retail space that had been home to a Price Rite. After an extensive remodeling, the store moved across the street, similar to how he would want to build and move in to a new Save-A-Lot around the corner on a CRDA-owned lot on Baltic Avenue.

In 2021, the new 21,000-square-foot Camden store opened, and the company produced a video with community members and Camden officials describing the importance of the store. Rinnier said he has a similar vision for Atlantic City, with nutritious produce and groceries, and a full stock of specialty foods that will appeal to the numerous cultural backgrounds that make up the city.

Rinnier said he sees a lot of opportunity in Atlantic City.

“We love being in Atlantic City. It’s just a matter of putting ourselves in a position where we get the right store,” he said.