By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Seven months after plans were announced for Big Y to open a supermarket at Post Plaza shopping center — where an Amazon Fresh store was proposed but failed to materialize — some may be wondering if the New England-based grocery chain is still coming to town.

The answer is “yes,” according to both a Big Y spokeswoman and the owner of the shopping center at 1076 Post Road East.

The family-owned supermarket business currently expects to open the Westport store in October, according to Jade Rivera-McFarlin, manager of communications for Big Y. The company has more than 90 stores throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts, according to its website. Big Y supermarkets closest to Westport are in Stratford, Monroe and Shelton. 

“We are definitely coming to town. Everybody is excited,” Rivera-McFarlin said about the Westport store. “It’s been empty for so long.”

Rumors that retail giant Amazon had plans to open an “Amazon Fresh” food store at the Post Plaza site once occupied by a Barnes & Noble store were circulating in the spring of 2021. Amazon Fresh stores, planned for spots all over the country at the time, were to be equipped with technology for “cashier-less checkout,” digital billing and numerous online shopping options.

After months of conjecture, the Field family confirmed in January 2022 that Amazon Fresh would be moving into the large space at their Post Plaza center, and that a lease with Amazon had been signed.

But by last January, when work at the site had stalled for more than 18 months following initial preparations,  it was revealed that Amazon had pulled the plug on its Westport project and the Big Y would be taking over the space. By then, other Amazon Fresh sites also had been left in “zombie” status as company officials paused the stores’ rollout to reconsider the concept.

Alix Field, whose family owns the Post Plaza center and has run a real estate company in Westport for more than five decades, also confirmed that Big Y will open a supermarket in the former Amazon Fresh site this fall.

“Big Y is a lively, family-run company like us,” she said. “We are anxious for it to open also.”

In the meantime, her family is collecting rent from Amazon and Big Y for the property, she said.

Big Y is now refitting the interior space, changing work Amazon had done to Big Y’s style of selling groceries, according to Rivera-McFarlin. “We want to make sure it’s right.”

In April, the circular, red Big Y logo sign was approved for the new store by the Architectural Review Board after one hearing. Amazon officials, on the other hand, had struggled to win approval for a sign for their planned store, which won backing only after several hearings and revisions to the original design. And, in the end, the Amazon Fresh sign was never installed on the storefront.

Currently, the building’s front windows are frosted over, blocking a view of work going on inside, but there are two construction permits posted outside by the town’s Building Department.

One permit is for work, estimated at $2.5 million, by Capex Facility Services & Construction of Leominster, Mass., to do “interior tenant fitout for the new Big Y grocery store in place of existing Amazon Fresh.” And the other is for Doyle Construction Co., of Rockville, Md., estimated at $4 million, also for interior work.

Big Y plans to hold a “soft opening” at the Westport store about two weeks before the grand opening, Rivera-McFarlin said. Big Y will also begin interviewing and training personnel for the store in the next few months, she added.

The Big Y business was established in Massachusetts in 1936, and is still owned and operated by the third generation of the D’Amour family, according to the company website. Big Y began opening stores in Connecticut in the 1980s.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.