Updates on Grand Island questions: Radisson, ALDI, Rite Aid site, Shoreline Trail

By Karen Carr Keefe

Senior Contributing Writer

What’s up with the Radisson?

When will Grand Island get its ALDI?

What’s next for the former Rite Aid?

When will the Island be fully tied in to the Shoreline Trail?

Town of Grand Island Supervisor Peter Marston recently gave some succinct and timely answers to those questions.

And, in a wide-ranging interview, Comprehensive Plan Review Board Chair Jim Sharpe gave a behind-the-scenes look at some of those same issues.

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Radisson buyers

“It’s pretty early yet,” Marston said March 2, of the process in getting new ownership for the former Radisson Hotel at 100 Whitehaven Road.

Last October, Council member Jose Garcia told NFP “An offer was made. It was accepted. There was a contract signed and it’s rolling.”

Vienna Laurendi, associate broker affiliated with Howard Hanna Real Estate Services Grand Island branch, represents the buyers, an Israeli investor group that also owns other property in Western New York.

 “Right now, contractually, we’re not closing until December of 2026. There’s no site plan that’s been submitted to the town yet, so there’s really nothing to report,” Laurendi said. “Nothing is set in stone at this point, with the exception of price.”

Laurendi said she couldn’t reveal that price.

She said both Marston and Sharpe met with the buyers. “We had a really long meeting – it might have gone almost five hours at the town, while my customers were here.”

She said her customers have not yet offered a press release on the purchase.

Garcia also met with the Radisson’s prospective buyers.

“Their vision really fits in with what we think it should be – a mixed-use-type space that has something for the community, and has something for our snowbirds, and maybe a place for our seniors to go. Not that it would be seniors, specifically,” he said.

“They plan on renovating the entire building. The suggestion was made to do it as it was done before – but maybe more first-class – is what they’d like to do, and they were very receptive to all of those conversations.”

Sharpe said he strongly suggests that, in addition to transforming it into a first-class facility, the developers of the former Radisson look toward to providing public benefit to the Grand Island community on the Niagara River side of the property.

He recommends a shoreline development area with public pier, docking, a boardwalk and a public restaurant as examples of what the redeveloped property could offer to the community.

Sharpe said it is part of the policies of the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program (that he created with a committee), that any big commercial projects that are on the river are required to give public benefit. A waterfront trail and kayak launching are other public access benefits that Sharpe advocates for as the former hotel site is redeveloped by new owners.

Sharpe said the Israeli investors are working with two firms in Buffalo – one engineering firm and one architectural firm. One of them is LaBella, which is the same group that Sharpe worked with to develop the town’s recreation master plan.

Sharpe noted the Israeli investors have “some real futurist concepts that they want to deploy in their hotel, and I think they’re pretty cool. And it’s concepts that are happening all over Europe. So, they kind of bring in some really interesting concepts to Grand Island with their hotel.”

Sharpe said it’s going to be an exclusive hotel and basically long-term renting. He said the buyers are using both Israel and local companies to work on the hotel project here.

The 263-room hotel has been closed since late 2022 following a $6.15 million sale to Haven 100 Project LLC. That is a group that includes Michael Conroe of Orchard Park-based Elev8 Architecture, and J.B. Earl Co. of Provo, Utah.

Marston said at the Town Board’s March 2 workshop meeting that the sellers of the Radisson had been granted historic status, which would play a role in how the approximately 50-year-old facility could be redeveloped.

Back in November 2023, Conroe said, “It’s a one-of-a-kind building that we don’t believe is really going to be replicated or allowed to be replicated on the Island. It’s one of the original planned communities on the Island. It was catering to tourists who came from all over the world for years – couple famous people stayed there. So, with that, they agreed with our argument that it was a historic building.”

Courtesy of ALDI

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ALDI: Delays due to ‘property issues’

 “The status quo” remains for the ALDI supermarket coming to Grand Island, Marston said. The store is still on track to come to the South End – at 1661 Grand Island Blvd., corner of Staley Road – but it has some red tape to get through before that happens. While initial reports in early 2024 indicated plans were progressing well, later-2025 updates suggested the project was facing delays related to property issues.

“We really want them to be successful,” Marston has said. “We want them to stay. We want them to be a nice-looking building. We want (them) to be part of us.”

According to a public hearing in May 2024 on an incentive zoning application filed by ALDI, “The proposed project will involve demolition of the existing building,” which formerly was a tourist information center, “pavements and other site improvements in the northwest corner of the site.”

The building has a square footage of 19,631, while the zoning code allows for a maximum of 15,000 square feet, according to the incentive zoning application.

Auto parts store interested in Rite Aid site?

Marston said he had an inquiry from an auto parts store indicating interest in the former Rite Aid Pharmacy site at 2325 Grand Island Blvd.

“We got a ‘How do you feel about this?’ letter. Like, ‘Does this fit your zoning? Does this fit your compliance? If it doesn’t, what doesn’t fit?’ ” Marston said. “They showed us a plan that somebody took the time to put together.”

“That’s usually a good sign, because it had no problems,” he said. “What they showed us fit 100%.

“We don’t know that they bought it. We don’t know if they’re going forward. We just know that they were looking.”

Rite Aid shuttered some 800 stores during its 2023 bankruptcy. Then, in May 2025, the pharmacy chain filed for its second bankruptcy and proceeded to close the majority of its remaining 1,200 stores.

The Grand Island store closed its pharmacy on June 23, then closed the entire store weeks later.

O'Reilly Auto Parts could be a prospective buyer.

In a July Substack entry about adaptive reuse of commercial real estate, Jason Miller said, “O'Reilly Auto Parts wants to open (about) 200 new stores in 2025, own more of its real estate and increase the number of its hub stores; the repurpose of Rite Aid buildings is helping it hit these targets.”

Miller added, “In a tight retail real estate market, these 2,000 former Rite Aid buildings represent the largest single block of retail real estate available for reuse and repurpose.”

Miller’s comments can be found at: (https://substack.com/@jasonmiller15)

He pointed out that a 15,000-square-foot former Rite Aid in Lockport recently opened as an O’Reilly store. Manager Ashton Wallak of that O’Reilly store said he was not aware of any inquiries about a Grand Island site for O’Reilly’s.

Stephen Beck, district manager for area O’Reilly Auto Parts stores, was unavailable for comment.

There is an Advance Auto Parts store at 2166 Grand Island Blvd., in the Tops Plaza.

O’Reilly Auto Parts started as a single store and has grown into a leading retailer in the automotive aftermarket industry with more than 6,100 locations and counting.

As is, town center is obstacle to trail continuity

The Niagara River Shoreline Trail has been designed to connect all the municipalities and parks along the Niagara River with a continuous off-road, multiuse trail running from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.

In addition to being chair of the Comprehensive Plan Review Board and the town’s Long Range Planning Committee, Sharpe also is a Niagara River Greenway commissioner. The commission guides the development of the Niagara River Shoreline Trail.

He said, “The issue is that West River Trail is a Greenway trail, and then (Grand Island Boulevard) is also a Greenway trail – that is for us to get biking from bridge to bridge.”

But the section on the Boulevard is not yet ready to link up.

“So, we’ve been doing every kind of shenanigan you could think of to try to get the trail from the Boulevard up onto the North Bridge,” Sharpe said. “The recommendation is that we built the sidewalk; why can’t we use the sidewalk?”

Sharpe said the only place there are curbs along that section of the Boulevard is from Whitehaven Road to the Baseline Road intersection.

“They can’t widen the shoulder and put a dedicated bike lane on, so therefore, we (the Greenway Commission) recommended they use the sidewalk,” Sharpe said.

Many communities along the route have completed the entire portion of the trail, but Grand Island’s town center doesn’t conform to trail specifications needed to link up for that through-route.

At the March 2 Town Board workshop meeting, Marston said Grand Island’s town center must undergo a series of changes to become part of the Shoreline Trail for hikers and bicyclists.

He said the changes are needed on Grand Island Boulevard and parts of Whitehaven and Baseline roads in the section near Tops plaza, which Marston refers to as the “diamond” of streets surrounding Town Hall.

He and Highway Superintendent James Sedita recently met with the state Department of Transportation on this issue, calling for completing sidewalk access; creating parking lanes in the town center; and, generally, making the area near Town Hall more accessible for hike-and-bike travel.

“What our vision looks like in the future (is) to lower speed limits, put parking in, (and make) a safer route to put bicycles down the Greenway path on Grand Island Boulevard,” Marston said.

He said the state DOT is doing a study on the whole area, also including the timing for traffic lights and accommodating pedestrian traffic. Marston said he has been working with the state DOT since the winter of 2024 to get striping on Baseline Road near Town Hall, reduce traffic to one lane in each direction on Whitehaven between the Boulevard and Baseline, and put in parking lanes there.

He said the Town Board should touch base with the state DOT for updates around Memorial Day.

Sharpe said there also are alternatives for the Shoreline Trail to take side roads off Grand Island Boulevard and link up with the town’s Linear Trail to get to East River Road at Buckhorn State Park.

In another aspect of town trails, the Town of Grand Island’s naming policy for parks, areas, greenways/spaces and facilities was outlined in the agenda package for the Town Board meeting of Oct. 20, 2025. Online information on the policy is available at: https://www.grand-island.ny.us/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_10202025-782.

For an application for naming a trail, contact the Grand Island Parks Department at 716-773-9686 or visit the department at 1881 Bedell Road.