GREENFIELD MERCANTILE CONSIDERING
TWO DOWNTOWN LOCATIONS

The Greenfield Mercantile is getting to closer to becoming a reality, by focusing on 2 downtown locations to open the Community-Owned department store.  The Franklin County Community Development Corporation announced that they have hired an architect to provide designs and cost estimates for renovating the First National Bank building to suit the stores needs.  “The Architect will provide 3 different design options for the building,”  said John Waite, Executive Director of the CDC, “one of those options will be for a 10,000 sq.ft. store that fits the Mercantile’s plan.”  The Mercantile has also been negotiating with the owner of 1 Fiske Avenue.  Currently Greenfield Furniture occupies one of the 4 floors in that building.  Both of these buildings fit the Mercantile’s plan to locate in downtown and provide the community with affordable clothing and housewares.

The Greenfield Mercantile and Cooperative Development Institute (CDI) will host a community presentation about the Mercantile’s progress on November 1, 2006 at 5:30 and 7:00pm at Greenfield Community College’s Downtown Center.  In addition to providing more information about the Greenfield store, the event will highlight another successful community-owned store.  Sharon Earhart, of the Powell, Wyoming, Chamber of Commerce is coming to Greenfield to speak about the success of their town's community-owned department store and its rich community benefits.

The Franklin County CDC’s Annual Meeting this year will be partially held in the Bank building and they will show a powerpoint presentation of the architect’s designs showing what the building could look like.  The event will be on Thursday, November 16, 2006 beginning at 4:30pm.

The CDC is exploring several options for the use of the Bank Row building.  “The CDC’s mission is to help the community maximize control over its future economic destiny, and the Greenfield Mercantile is a great example, so we want to consider it for this building, which is also an asset to the community.” said Waite. 

The Mercantile will soon be selling ownership shares at $100 per share.  “We want thousands of local people to invest, so not only will we have another shopping option but we will own the store as well,” said Bob Rottenberg of the Mercantile Board of Directors. This idea was developed when Ames left the area more than 3 years ago.Although the Greenfield Ames store was profitable the parent company decided to close all the stores. That can not happen when members of the community own the store and make the decisions.

One of the top goals of the Greenfield Mercantile is to create a shopping venue that creates another “pull” to downtown Greenfield’s business district and to keep consumer dollars flowing within the town.  Both of the locations the Mercantile is investigating respond to that goal.  Recent studies and surveys indicate that if people have more shopping options in Greenfield they will frequent the downtown more, thereby shopping at existing stores more often as well.  People want convenience and choices, so if they can park in one place and walk around downtown and get the variety of products and services they need they will
return more often. Both of these events are open and free to the public.

For more information, please contact the CDC at 413-774-7204 or email This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it