State Road Acme Sets New Opening Date

Updated Feb. 13, 4:15 p.m.

Those waiting for the unveiling of the State Road Acme's expansion won't have to wait much longer.

City and store officials say the opening will come this spring.

In addition to interior work, Cuyahoga Falls Planning and Zoning Director Fred Guerra said the store must also make some changes to comply with city codes. Those changes include the window openings on 23rd Street and finishing the employee parking lots.

"What makes it difficult is because they're keeping the old store open while they're building the new store," Guerra said. "They're building the new store around the old store, basically."

The store's square footage will more than double, from 25,000 square feet to 52,500 square feet.

The Cuyahoga Falls Planning Commission conducted a walkthrough of the Acme Fresh Market #10 construction site in November 2012 and later met to determine the fate of glass block windows that had been installed across the east side of the new building. 

Plans submitted by Acme had called for plate-glass windows and awnings versus glass blocks, and the city wasn't notified of the design change, which drew the ire of several commission members.

However, after seeing the changes, the commission voted 6-0 to keep the newly installed windows, which will become an integral part of an artistic concept approved by Steve Albrecht, owner of Acme's parent company Albrecht, Inc. 

The $8 million grocery store is located on land acquired during the past decade by Albrecht Inc., Acme's parent company and the retail and industrial real estate arm of the Fred W. Albrecht Grocery Co.

Jim Nilsen, president and treasurer of Albecht Inc., told Cuyahoga Falls Patch in the spring of 2012 that the customer base at the State Road Acme “has been enormously patient” awaiting improvements to the store built in 1949.

“At one time it was a state-of-the-art grocery store,” Nilsen said then. By today’s standards, though, “it’s way, way undersized.”