Some more construction is on the way for Bradford in the coming
weeks, but this won’t be on a road. A new video store will be at
the other end of this project.
“We’ll be open for Christmas,” stated Bill Mohler, vice
president of Family Video, referring to a location set at the
corner of West Washington and North Center streets.
Contrary to rumors that the company had backed out of plans to
open in Bradford, Mohler said, “we own the property. We’re coming
to town.”
His company had purchased houses and the Greens Court apartment
building at that location to demolish for their store.
Plans had called for the company to be building at that location
already, but things took longer than expected in site clearance.
Mohler explained that right now, they have finished asbestos
testing in the buildings that are set for demolition and expect to
proceed soon with clearing the lot.
“We’re getting in the process of knocking everything down,” he
said. “It will be probably be coming down in the next seven to 10
days.
“Right behind it we’ll be starting to build,” Mohler added. That
process should go fairly quickly, he said. “We’re pretty used to
building them.”
The stores are all built in a similar fashion. The Bradford
store will be 7,000-square-feet.
“You’ll probably see us start hiring in about 45 days,” he said.
“We hire somewhere around 12 to 14 people, a mix of part-time and
full-time people.”
The store will also have lease space available, which will be
for a restaurant of some type. Mohler said he could not give out
specific details at this point on what that will be.
“I’m not sure if it’s signed yet, but odds are it’s something
you eat,” he said with a laugh.
The Greens Court apartments had been owned by the Bradford
Redevelopment Authority. The tenants there were relocated to other
properties, such as similar apartments on Elm Street, when the
agreement was reached with Family Video.
Family Video is the largest privately held video chain in the
country and the third largest video chain in the country. The
company owns the properties at each of its locations.
