Posted on: Tuesday, July 17, 2007

SARANAC LAKE — The Saranac Lake Community Store is ready to begin selling public shares, commencing with a press conference scheduled for 11 a.m. today at the Harrietstown Hall.

Shares of the the department store will be $100 each, with a maximum of $10,000 worth of stock per individual. One must be a New York state resident to buy shares.

“The goal of the store will be to carry merchandise that can’t be found here at a price that’s affordable,” said Melinda Little, interim board president of the Community Store. Specific items Little said the store will offer include clothing, shoes, linens, sheets, towels, craft items and baby goods.

The closure of Ames in 2002 left a department store void that has not been fully filled in Saranac Lake, although several other stores have begun stocking more household items. Tupper Lake’s Ames was replaced by a WiseBuys department store, but proposals for WiseBuys and other companies to move into Saranac Lake’s former Ames fell through, and it was split into three stores.

Then Wal-Mart planned to build a 121,000-square-foot store across the street from the former Ames, and the community became bitterly divided over whether to welcome or spurn the retail giant. Wal-Mart would have needed to buy the village’s 10.8-acre sand pit, and it became the major issue in the March 2006 village board election. After the new village board decided to stall the environmental review process for the site, Wal-Mart pulled out in fall 2006, saying the village’s political atmosphere made it too difficult. A former car dealership it would have needed was then sold to the Aldi grocery chain.

Saranac Lake got the idea for a community department store from Powell, Wyo., which founded one when its department store closed.

—Heather Sackett and Peter Crowley

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