By SAXON DAUGHERTY
Staff Writer
Today marks the first day the Aldi store on Route 322 in Cranberry Township will be closed as work progresses on a roughly $1 million expansion project.
The store is closed to customers until July 26, and employees will be temporarily relocated to other stores.
Christopher Kambar, an engineer with APD Engineering & Architecture of Rochester, New York, said at a Venango County Regional Planning Commission meeting in March that plans call for a 3,093-square foot expansion to add a fifth retail aisle to the grocery store.
The grocery store will also receive an updated look to its facade and improved signage.
No new impervious surface will be added, and the actual size of the parking lot will remain the same. The existing asphalt will be resurfaced.
The plan also calls for the addition of a water line to service a new sprinkler system, and an easement agreement has already been finalized between Aldi and the owners of the adjacent mall property, according to planning commission Executive Director Jason Ruggiero.
After purchasing a parcel of land from the mall in January of 1995, Aldi opened the Cranberry Township location later that year near the intersection of routes 257 and 322.
Aldi currently has more than 1,600 stores across 35 states, according to the company’s website.
Aldi first opened in Germany and brought its first U.S. store to Iowa in 1976.
