Pleasant Hill Times


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Collecting household hazards

Volunteers collect and sort household hazardous waste (above) at a mobile collection event held Saturday morning at the Cass County Fairgrounds in Pleasant Hill. The collection event was free to residents of Pleasant Hill and other communities that participate in the Mid-America Regional Council’s Solid Waste Management District. The volunteers unloaded 300 vehicles well before 12 noon on Saturday. They collected thousands of pounds of paints, cleaners, oils, antifreeze, old batteries and other potentially hazardous wastes. Households unable to take advantage of Saturday’s mobile collection event can still dispose of their hazardous waste at permanent sites in Kansas City and Lee’s Summit. The Kansas City site at 4740 Deramus is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and the Lee’s Summit site at 2101 Southeast Hamblen Road is open by appointment 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. on first Saturday of the month, 2-6:30 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month, year round (paint only on Wednesdays). Call 816-969-1805 for an appointment.

Save-A-Lot ownership changes hands
By F. KIRK POWELL Editor & Publisher Ownership of the Save-A-Lot Food Store in Pleasant Hill changed hands this week. In a deal that closed earlier this week, Howard and Vickie Stone sold the store to a Save-A-Lot ownership group headquartered in Jefferson City. The group currently has six Save-A-Lot stores in Missouri and the Pleasant Hill store will be the seventh. An eighth store is currently under construction outside of St. Louis and plans to open soon. The new owners have been Save-A-Lot retailers since 1980. The group has asked Stone to stay on as manager of their new Save-A-Lot store in Pleasant Hill. “I want to thank our customers and the community for their support over the past 2-1/2 years,” Stone said. “This wasn’t an easy decision to make, but we simply ran out of money.” Stone explained that the Save-A-Lot store had some major equipment failures and he didn’t have the capital needed to replace it and weather a slowdown in the economy at the same time. “We tried to re-finance our debt,” he said, “but we were unable to get the credit we needed.” Stone said he thinks that the new ownership will be a plus for the Pleasant Hill community. “There won’t be a lot of changes at the store,” he said, “and the changes that our customers do see will be positive.” For one, the new ownership group will have more buying power and that means there will be more grocery products on store shelves at lower prices. Stone said the new owners also plan to expand the produce department, put in more fresh meat cases and add a beer cooler at the store. Save-A-Lot will continue to hire the same staff and will even add three more employees at the store. Hours will remain the same. Stone said the store would be closed for a few days later this month for remodeling, but would reopen as quickly as possible. “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to stay on at Save-A-Lot,” Stone said. “I love what I do, I love this community and I believe firmly that Pleasant Hill needs this store.” Stone apologized to customers who came in the store to shop in the past and were not always able to find what they needed on the shelves. “From now on,” he said, “the store will be fully stocked and prices will be the lowest around.” The Stones purchased the Pleasant Hill Save-A-Lot store from ValleVista U.S. Super, Inc., and Don and Nancy Carnel in early 2008. The Carnels opened the Pleasant Hill Save-a-Lot store January of 1997. The store at 309 North 7 Highway had previously housed a Gerbes supermarket. Save-A-Lot is a discount supermarket chain headquartered in St. Louis County, Missouri that includes more than 1,200 stores in the United States and over $4 billion in annual sales. A wholly owned subsidiary of Supervalu, Save-A-Lot is the 13th-largest retail chain and the sixth-largest chain under a single banner. Most locations are owned and operated by independent owners like the Stones and the new ownership group under an agreement with Supervalu. The Save-A-Lot grocery store network spans from Maine to California and serves more than 4 million shoppers each week. Customers enjoy grocery store bargains on exclusive Save-A-Lot brands along with many popular national brands including USDA-inspected beef, pork and poultry, farm-fresh fruits and vegetables and non-food items. There is even a Save-A-Lot store in Dominica in the Caribbean. While working for a grocery wholesaler in the mid- '70s, Save-A-Lot founder Bill Moran identified an opportunity for small grocers to compete against emerging megastores and created Save-A-Lot's limited assortment business model. When the first store opened in Cahokia, Ill., in 1977, the format was immediately successful. In 1977, the General Grocer Company adopted Moran's idea of the carefully selected assortment format and opened five additional stores in the St. Louis area. Within a year, word-of-mouth advertising helped spread awareness and Save- A-Lot expanded to 29 locations. By 1980, Save-A-Lot added 52 locations and opened a warehouse in Jackson, Tenn. “Our highly efficient supply chain enables us to sell at prices well below other retailers,” a Save-A-Lot spokesman said, “and our customers can use the money they save for other things that are important to them.” Save-A-Lot's corporate offices are based in St. Louis. In 1983, General Grocer sold Save-A-Lot exclusively to Moran. Five years later, Save-A-Lot was acquired by Wetterau Incorporated, a St. Louis-based food wholesaler and retailer. During this time, Save-A-Lot expanded aggressively including the purchase of 76 Jewel T stores and two additional warehouses, one in Pennsylvania and one in Florida. In 1993, Supervalu, Inc. acquired Wetterau and with it, Save-A-Lot. Today, Save-A-Lot remains a wholly owned subsidiary of Supervalu. In 2006, Save-A-Lot founder Bill Moran announced his retirement after almost 30 years leading the company. Bill Shaner, a 25-year food industry veteran and former chief operating officer of the company, was named president and chief executive officer of Save-A-Lot.

Westbound I-470 reopens to traffic

Just 43 days after sliding soil triggered the collapse of the pavement on westbound I-470 in south Kansas City, a restored westbound stretch of roadway in the 3-Trails Crossing was reopened to traffic last Friday. The emergency project was completed 19 days ahead of schedule. "Thanks to the extraordinary teamwork and efforts of hundreds of transportation engineers, designers and construction workers, we are reopening this vital link 19 days earlier than the contractor's deadline," said MoDOT district engineer Beth Wright. "We are also grateful to the thousands of motorists who patiently altered their routes to accommodate this emergency repair." General contractor Pyramid Contractors, Inc. was committed to re-opening I- 470 by September 15. Pyramid will receive an incentive payment of approximately $760,000 for restoring traffic on August 26. When MoDOT closed the busy interstate link on July 17, a team of geologists and engineers set about the task to remedy the problem and get traffic back onto the 5-lane segment of highway as soon as possible. In the span of five weeks, workers removed the failed pavement, drilled shafts more than 60 feet deep to form concrete pillars anchored into bedrock that support the 225- foot-long bridge extension, and formed and poured a concrete deck and barrier walls. By Sunday, Aug. 22, the bridge deck was complete and cured until the concrete was at full strength. Pyramid will continue with earth work and grading through September, it will not impact traffic on the roadway. "When we had the emergency closure of I-470 to westbound I-435, our top priority was safely repairing the roadway as quickly as possible for the 60,000 drivers who use it every day,” Wright said. “It took a lot of cooperation and work from many individuals to make it happen.” The $4.5 million project required a lot of material and labor hours to get completed in such a short time. The project required more than 850 tons of concrete and 135 tons of steel. That much material would fill about 10 railroad cars. One hundred percent of the debris from the collapsed roadway will be recycled. None of the material from the old roadway will make its way to landfills. Material was sorted into steel, other metal, rock, and soil to be recycled or reused in other projects. The average work week consisted of 12-hour to 14- hour days and 24 hours a day at times, seven days a week. Crews took off only one Sunday. With up to 50 workers at any one time, the time put in on the project amounted to more than 20,000 hours. MoDOG estimated that if construction crews had worked an 8-hour day, five days a week, the project would have not been complete until the second week of October. For information on the I- 470 work and other transportation projects, go to MoDOT's website at www. modot.mo.gov/kansascity. For instant updates, follow MoDOT-KC on Twitter or send questions and comments to kccommunityrelations@ modot.mo.gov.

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