Longtime Scottsdale Bashas’ closes

Bashas’ cashier Susan Canning gave wheelchair-bound customer Gigi Gordon her bags, her change and a big hug.

SLIDESHOW: Last day at Scottsdale Bashas'

“I’ve been coming here for 44 years, and I’m really going to miss these people,” Gordon said. “They are lovely, gracious, helpful, intelligent and warm-hearted. They go out of their way to help me and many others who come in wheelchairs.”

After 45 years in the same spot, the Bashas’ supermarket at 74th Street and McDowell Road in south Scottsdale is closing today to make way for something else.

The Chandler-based grocery chain’s long-time efforts to stay in the area — fending off plans for a Ellman Cos. project that would have brought a Wal-Mart Supercenter to the area and supporting plans for nearby SkySong redevelopment expected to bring more people — have failed.

“It’s the end of an era. We have been part of that community for a long time, but the new owner has designs that don’t include a (traditional) grocery store,” said Rob Johnson, Bashas’ spokesman.

In fact, plans submitted to the city by PDG America, the company that owns the land and plans a $150 million makeover of Los Arcos Crossings and the rest of the commercial space to the east of the aging supermarket, include a “neighborhood grocer” along with other shops, restaurants, offices, town homes and apartments.

Developers could not be reached for comment on who the “neighborhood grocer” might be.

Bashas, which a couple of years ago completed a major redevelopment of a similar supermarket at Hayden and Indian School roads and is about to do a similar makeover of a store at Granite Reef Road and McDonald Drive, wanted to stay in the area, Johnson said.

But since the owners didn’t feel the same, Johnson hopes south Scottsdale shoppers will “follow us to one of those stores,” or to a Food City at McKellips and Scottsdale roads, he said.

The redevelopment is not scheduled to begin, but Bashas’ lease was up for renewal in May. “Knowing in the near term the owner is building something else, we wouldn’t renew the lease,” Johnson said.

He said all the employees — some of whom have worked at the store for decades, have been offered jobs at other Bashas stores.

Canning said she’ll be going to the AJ’s at Lincoln Drive and Scottsdale Road. But she lives near the old Bashas and the shoppers there were neighbors as well as customers.

“You get used to the people in your neighborhood,” Canning said. “Yesterday three people just cried. They were heartbroken. A lot of people depend on this store. But all we can say is we’re sorry, and we’ll miss them."