[B]URLINGTON — City Market’s second store is open for business.
The Burlington grocery co-op’s second store is about 2,000 square feet larger, and has copious parking — 115 spots to be exact — a key benefit to shoppers who complain of frequent congestion at City Market’s original downtown location. They will also soon open two electric car charging stations.
The food choices remain generally the same as what shoppers find in the downtown store — a mix of local and conventional food, plus a sandwich station and hot bar. The new location also has more than 70 bike parking spaces, a café that opens to the outdoors in warmer weather, a teaching kitchen and a community room.
The new location dealt with environmental issues almost from the start.
“When we first purchased the site, there was a lot of clean up to do,” said John Tashiro, City Market’s General Manager.
Tashiro explained at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday that the site where the new store sits was for centuries zoned for industrial use, and was recently a road salt depot.
The store is also the first grocery store in Vermont to utilize a new, more efficient type of refrigeration, Tashiro said.
The new system uses carbon dioxide as a refrigerant instead of more hazardous chlorofluorocarbons. These chemicals notably deplete the ozone layer, and many jurisdictions are banning or regulating their use.
The new carbon dioxide-based refrigerators are more efficient and cleaner, but more expensive.
“The investment up front was certainly higher than a traditional refrigeration unit,” Tashiro said, “But we ultimately saw the benefit for the planet.”
“It sets the precedent for other businesses to follow,” he said.
Last year, City Market made about $41 million in sales.
With the new store finished, the co-op is teasing another expansion project which may bring a store to Burlington’s Old North End.
