Gina and Dan Beckley pose Tuesday at the Van Buren Drive In, which they have up and running after a 30-year hiatus. Photo by M.J. Stafford

Editor’s Note: This is the first of five stories highlighting some of the most-read stories in The Post-Journal during the past year. Today’s series focuses on area businesses.

The Jamestown area is buzzing with excitement over the opening of a Target store in the former Kmart store in West Ellicott.

While there is no information yet on when Target will open its new area location, company officials recently shared their plans for the building. The lack of an opening date hasn’t dampened readers’ interest in the announcement.

Ellicott town Supervisor Pat McLaughlin said in a recent interview that Target, which recently purchased the property, does not plan to tear down the existing building. Rather, the company plans to renovate the existing structure.

“I believe their intent is to basically redo the parking lot and the entrance there on Southwestern Drive,” McLaughlin said. “They have indicated that probably 75 to 80% of the work that is going to take place is going to be inside. The existing building will be there, but obviously to get that building up to what would be Target standards versus — let’s say the last few years of the Kmart — needs a lot of work.”

Pictured are Lander’s Men’s Store owners Clifford and Ann Powers. The couple will be retiring in July, resulting in the closing of their longtime Jamestown store. P-J file photo

Target has set its expansion sights on former Kmart locations this year. Early in 2021, the parent company of Kmart and Sears assigned five Kmart store leases to Target for properties in North Carolina, Wyoming, California, New Jersey and Maine. It was announced earlier this year that another former Kmart building in Lebanon County, Pa., will also be the home of a Target. And, in November, it was learned that the former Kmart location in West Ellicott will, at some point, house a Target.

“Among those projects, we’ve opened new stores ranging from 11,000 to 160,000 square feet, which demonstrates the flexibility we’ve developed to design the optimal store size for an individual neighborhood based on their local needs and available real estate in the market,” Mulligan said. “To increase the capacity and efficiency of our supply chain, our team has also opened two new distribution centers this year. In addition, we have two new sortation centers set to open in the fourth quarter with two more on track to open early next year. While our supply chain has had to address a host of unique challenges. I also want to acknowledge the tireless work of our construction team, which enabled them to successfully bring a huge number of store and distribution projects to completion this year.”

OLLIE’S OPENS IN LAKEWOOD

Ollie’s officials confirmed in response to a Post-Journal inquiry in February that the bargain outlet would open a location in Lakewood.

That location opened in October in time for the holiday shopping season.

Pictured, from left, are Sharon Bennett of Washington Prime Group; Andy Erie, Ollie’s district manager; Julie Bihler, Chautauqua Mall general manager; and Todd Polley, Ollie’s manager. P-J photo by Katrina Fuller

The opening of the store, which is located at the Chautauqua Mall, drew crowds looking for deals with numbers in the hundreds. District manager Andy Erie said the opening went exceedingly well.

“It’s been great,” Erie said. “Customers have been coming in — they love the building and they love the products we’re selling right now. It’s been really, really good.”

He said there were about 100 people lined up before the store opened, and several hundred had come in by mid-afternoon. Erie said he expected close to 1,000 customers to come through before the day ended.

Erie said quite a bit of work went into tailoring the space for the opening, including adding fixtures, steelwork and shelving. He said it was a 33-day process.

Todd Polley, store manager, said the grand opening is an exciting occasion for both the store staff, himself and the customers.

“I just think it’s great for the community,” Polley said.

Jamestown-area shoppers likely haven’t yet seen the best of Ollie’s, according to John Swygert, Ollie’s president and CEO, who recently spoke with investor analysts recently to discuss the company’s third-quarter financial results. Despite the disappointing quarter, Swygert said there are opportunities being presented that should assuage investors’ concerns and be beneficial to Ollie’s customers. Swygert said customers may have noticed later-than-expected deliveries of toys, Christmas items and heaters, typically a big seller in the wintertime, as shipping containers weren’t available due to capacity issues and port congestion.

“First, we remain very excited about the incredible deals being presented to us each and every day,” Swygert said. “And we expect to see even more deals related to order cancellations, and abandoned goods associated with import shipping delays. Second, we have made meaningful progress in driving improved efficiencies and increased through put across our distribution centers. And third, we provide exceptional value to our customers, which we believe will benefit our business as this highly inflationary period continues, and consumers trade down.”

Ollie’s opened 18 new stores in the third quarter of 2021, including the Lakewood location, ending the quarter with 426 stores in 29 states, a year-over-year increase in store count of 10.6%. In 2021, Ollie’s has opened 45 total so far in 2021.

“While new stores have likely been impacted by the same dynamics as our current store base, we remain pleased with the productivity level of our new stores overall,” Swygert said. “New stores are ultimately the engine of our sales growth and we plan to open between 50 to 55 stores annually on a go forward basis, and believe that our model can support 1,050 stores in total. While the supply chain issues are likely impacting us in the short-term, we remain as confident as ever in our business model and our long-term growth outlook.”

PROGRESS MADE ON DRIVE-IN

From a snowy field in February to a drive-in ready for business by late October.

Dan and Gina Beckley of Advanced Production Group of Dunkirk are ready for business — and some cooperative weather.

The couple’s drive-in features three screeens on the site of the former Van Buren Drive In was located. The former drive-in closed in 1991. In 2011, the large screen blew down in a 2011 microburst tornado.

The multi-purpose field will be utilized as a secondary screen location, as well as community events, dance recitals, weddings, sporting events, farmers markets, graduations, cooking shows, family reunions, small musical events, car shows, dog shows and more. The second screen would be a 24-foot-by-16-foot LED which would allow for movies to be shown twice a day, three times a week for children and the elderly.

The third screen would be for RVers who would park and watch movies privately overnight.

It took a pandemic, a massive cleanup effort, 1.5 million pounds of stone, an 86-year-old from Ohio, and a local couple full of dreams to get the Van Buren Drive In running again.

“We were way behind schedule on permits until recently,” Dan Beckley said. Between that, materials shortages and increased costs for everything, an early May opening had to be delayed until Oct. 1.

Another thing the Beckleys had to clean up: Bits of the old movie screen, destroyed in a 2001 tornado. “We found screen carnage spread all across the 30 acres,” Dan said.

The effort led to an opening screening on Oct. 1, and the drive-in will be showing first-run movies on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays until sometime next month, when it gets too cold. They are also doing weekend matinees and sports viewing parties.

They will install two more screens next year and intend to be open seven days a week. Grass ramps for cars to sit on will also get installed as the lot continues to get smoothed out.

In summer 2022, they will have a Sunday afternoon jazz series that they had to cancel this year because the site wasn’t ready. The Beckleys will also have “theme nights” where fans of popular movies can dress up as their favorite characters. Dan suggested “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Batman.”

A SAD FAREWELL

Lander’s Men’s Store owners Clifford and Ann Powers retired earlier this year — a story that was read with interest by readers for whom the Main Street shop was a familiar touchstone of downtown Jamestown.

The original owner of the store began operations in 1952. Clifford Powers began working at the store in 1973, and he and his wife purchased the business in 1980. Powers said the customers have been what’s kept them going for several decades decades.

“When (customers) have a need, we take care of it,” he said. “We take stuff to nursing homes, we have (customers) down in Pennsylvania … they say ‘I need four jeans, I’ll be up in four hours to pick them up.’ We’ve even shipped stuff to Canada over the years.”

The store was originally situated in the building next to their 215 N. Main St. location, but they moved to their current spot in 1988 to accommodate for the increased supply of clothing.

Powers noted that their store is the last clothing business in downtown Jamestown.

“I told (Ann) that 30 years ago,” Powers said. “I said, ‘The way it’s going around here, we’re going to end up being the only ones left.’ There were six men’s stores, 12 women’s stores and probably 12 shoe stores. It’s kind of shrunk.”

Powers said the couple is still doing well financially with the business, but retirement is simply the next step for him and his wife. The couple has been able to close their store for a couple weeks a year throughout the last decade due to their success, and they’ve used that time to travel across the country and world.

“I’m 71 going to be 72,” Powers said. “It’s just time. I can’t sell it to somebody else. We’ve had a few inquire, but they want you to work here with them. And, of course, we do all the alterations, so we’d have to have somebody who knows how to do them.”

Powers’ wife recounts a time when downtown Jamestown had a different character to it as a moment that stood out to her. “I remember it was really enjoyable when they had open house before Christmas,” she said. “Our daughter would wrap up little presents from D and K. She’d dress as an elf and hand out the Christmas presents to all the little kids. Everybody was just in a good mood and downtown was packed that day.”

Powers said its been hard watching similar retailers leaving the town or closing their doors.

“The saddest part over the years is watching all these ones leave that used to be here,” Powers said. “They were basically people who were our peers. Jewelry stores, men’s and women’s clothing stores and shoe stores.”

RIPLEY FEELING THE ‘LOVE’

Readers were certainly interested when news broke of a $13 million Love’s Travel Stop and Country Store at the first New York exit for the Thruway on Shortman Road, where the former Colonial Squire Motel was located.

The facility will consist of a convenience store, a fast food restaurant and a tire repair building. There will be separate areas for truck and auto fueling as well as separate auto and truck parking areas.

The county has been working with Love’s on their $13,325,000 proposal for over a year. The terminal is scheduled to be 22,000 square feet on a 16 acre parcel.

CCIDA Chief Executive Officer Mark Geise called Love’s a “win-win” project. “Not only does it create commerce at our gateway, but it also, through the host agreement, allows the town to do needed upgrades to their water and sewer infrastructure,” he said.

The project has progressed throughout the year. The outside of the building is mostly complete, and Geise said during a recent IDA meeting that the travel plaza could open in the spring.