West Point Market to Close

Is it the death knell for the Killer Brownies? West Point Market, the Akron, Ohio, nationally renowned, one-unit specialty store that invented the decadent treats has announced that it will close its doors at the end of the year. Its owners are selling the property to a real estate developer who plans to tear down the store and build a new shopping center anchored by an "unnamed specialty grocer" according to a report in the Akron Beacon Journal. The newspaper lists the developer as S.J. Collins Enterprises. Based near Atlanta, S.J. Collins is known for developing shopping centers anchored by Whole Foods. While S.J. Collins is not identifying the name of its new tenant, the new shopping center will be named West Point Marketplace in a nod to the importance of its former tenant. In addition to a 50,000 square-foot specialty supermarket, the new shopping center will contain an additional 10,000 square feet of space to house another four to six specialty retailers. West Point Market has been in  business for nearly 80 years and has a national reputation for its high-end cheeses, specialty groceries, wine, prepared foods and bakery, including Killer Brownies, rich, chocolate brownies that are so rich and decadent they are to die for. Those Killer Brownies may have an afterlife, however. Larry Uhl, president of West Point Market, told the Beacon Journal that the owners are working on plans to develop a chain of "the best of West Point" shops, small stores selling Killer Brownies and some of West Point Market's other famous wares. The new stores would be serviced from a central commissary, with the first opening somewhere in Summit County, Ohio. Uhl envisions as many as a dozen mini West Point Market dotting the Buckeye State.