DATE: Thursday, October 16, 1997            TAG: 9710160494

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MIKE ABRAMS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   82 lines

BAYSHORE MARKETS TO CLOSE AFTER LOSSES

At 40 percent off, the spices Elizabeth Barnes found Tuesday at Bayshore Market on Shore Drive don't often come at a better price.

With plenty of bargains to be found throughout the store this week, the senior Beach woman and her husband did a good bit of ``stocking up.''

Then they said goodbye.

``I just hate to see an independent go out of business,'' she said while tucking a full bag into their car trunk.

By week's end - give or take a day or two - Bayshore Markets chief executive J. Dudley Godwin Jr. plans to close the store.

Count his decision as another casualty of big-chain expansion and a notice that all is not well at the 47-year-old shopping center where Pleasure House Road crosses Shore Drive.

Maine-based grocer Hannaford Bros. Co. spent $6 million to open a free-standing superstore in the spring less than a mile east of the shopping center. That store, plus two nearby Food Lions, hurt Godwin's relatively small market.

His 22,000-square-foot store opened just three years ago as the company's first and only venture in Virginia Beach.

Godwin, Bayshore's founder and president, says his four ``neighborhood'' outlets on the Eastern Shore are doing well. The Beach's Bayside store, however, has been losing money.

``We'll spend our money, our time and talents on the other side of the Bay,'' Godwin said. ``We certainly appreciate the support people have given us.''

The Beach location's 20 employees have been offered jobs at the other locations, or interviews for positions with competing grocers.

``I don't think another supermarket will go in there,'' Godwin said. ``The area is already over-stored.''

His going-out-of-business sale marks another in a long line of grocery closings in Bayside Shopping Center. Others, from IGA to Farm Fresh, tried the location.

The 7.13-acre property includes a video store, karate studio, learning center and salon. A restaurant and auto parts store occupy outlying parcels. The center's land and building were assessed this year at $2.9 million.

Tuesday, store operators and patrons pondered the loss of an anchor store and wondered what the future might bring.

``Maybe a clothing store or thrift market,'' said James Carter, who had purchased 50 cans of discounted Juicy Juice. He plans to resell them at his Merrimac Market in Norfolk.

Dennis Bowman, who manages Best Value Hardware in the center, said the strip mall's long-term health depends upon a new anchor that can advertise weekly. Until then, he said, foot traffic may decrease ``a wee bit.''

``The shopping center's doing OK,'' he said. ``There's a good mix of businesses.''

Larry Hecht, a leasing agent with Harvey Lindsay Commercial Real Estate, said he's confident his firm will find a replacement. The Realtor has leased the property for the Beach-based ownership group, Bellwood Associates, since 1988.

Aside from the market, the center's other major tenant is Bayside Pharmacy, which also has faced tough competition of late.

Manager and longtime pharmacist Lindsay Reavis said Bayside's daily prescription level of about 125 is an all-time high. In fact, he said, the daily average was slightly lower before Hannaford opened with an in-store pharmacy.

He said the independent pharmacy has operated under the same ownership since 1962 and has kept customers by doing what others no longer do.

Tuesday, for instance, a customer who needed an antibiotic didn't have the money to cover it. She asked if she could post-date a check. Reavis quickly gave the OK.

The pharmacist said he also stocks hard-to-find medications when patients need them and fills custom-compounded prescriptions, when necessary.

But he knows the store's fortunes could change.

Rite Aid Corp., headquartered in central Pennsylvania, is putting the finishing touches on a stand-alone store about a mile away. The company's $2 million, 11,000-square-foot pharmacy at the intersection of Independence Boulevard and Pleasure House will feature a drive-up window.

``We hope that our patients who come to us now keep coming,'' Reavis said. ``You just never know. What I'm kind of hoping is that anybody who wants to go to a chain already has.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

PHILIP HOLMAN

Dennis Bowman...

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