Weavers Way to leave West Oak Lane

Weavers Way announced today that it will stop operating its West Oak Lane store on August 31. The store itself is not closing. It will be taken over, under a new name, by Ogontz Avenue Revitalization Corporation (OARC) beginning September 1. Weavers Way is not selling the store to OARC. It is flat out giving OARC most of the equipment and infrastructure needed to operate a store. OARC already owns the building at the location.

Weavers Way opened the store at 2129 72nd Ave. in 2007 but it continues to be a money drain for the Co-op. For the past several years, Weavers Way continued to see that store as an integral part of its mission of bringing healthy foods to everyone. But Jon McGoran, spokesman for Weavers Way, says the Co-op decided early this summer that it couldn’t keep operating like this.

Weavers Way has spent the years looking for ways to boost sales and keep costs under control. McGoran says it has tried everything from changing the products offered to new store layouts to spur sales.

The latest strategy was to add more staffing to improve security and customer service but that too had problems. “(The store) did see some substantial increases in sales but the increases in staffing to achieve that meant that the losses were the same, if not greater,” said McGoran.

NewsWorks will have more on this story Tuesday.

We want to know what you think of Weavers Way ending its involvement in the West Oak Lane store. Can a health food grocery store make it in an urban neighborhood?