By Tony Spinelli
Connecticut Post Online
MONROE, Conn. — It's not every day someone plans to demolish an old shopping center to make room for a new one.
That's why the Monroe Fire Department has applied for a demolition permit to take down the former Grand Union store on Monroe Turnpike.
Plans for a long-awaited Super Stop & Shop store on the site are moving forward, and the Fire Department wants its personnel to get some use out of the old building for training before it is taken down, said Fire Marshal Bill Davin.
"They wouldn't set it on fire, but they'd use it for commercial fire exercises," Davin said.
For example, they could practice with smoke-filled rooms, cubicles and ventilation systems.
"They could get some serious air pack training," he said, referring to the backpacks that firefighters wear.
A spokesman for the Quincy, Mass.-based chain of 360 Stop & Shop stores in the Northeast is researching the question of whether the pre-demolition exercises would be allowed.
If approved, Davin said it would most likely happen this winter.
It's an unusual request, from a demolition perspective.
"The Fire Department doesn't often get a chance to practice in a commercial building," said Jim Sandor, the town's building official.
Sandor is in charge of issuing demolition permits.
The Super Stop & Shop will encompass roughly 64,000 square feet, which includes full service grocery, produce, meat and general merchandise departments, as well as a bank and coffee shop all under the same roof,'' said Rob Keane, the Stop & Shop spokesman.
The store will employ 200 workers, Keane said, most of them part-time.
It would mark the first time since the mid-1990s that the town has more than one supermarket.
Grand Union closed in 1995, shortly after the Big Y supermarket opened nearby on Monroe Turnpike.
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