Demolition workers began taking down the Big N Plaza on Nott Street Thursday, nearly 30 years after its namesake closed.
The building, a symbol of Schenectady blight, is making way for a new $20 million development to include the YMCA and the Graduate College of Union University.
“This is a great day for Schenectady,” Mayor Brian U. Stratton said. “This is the realization of a dream for me personally and a great addition to the community.”
Demolition and cleanup is expected to take 45 days at a cost of about $450,000, officials have said. Syracuse-based Bianchi Industrial Services is performing the demolition. Construction on both the college and YMCA buildings is targeted to begin in the spring, taking about 12 months, Metroplex Development Authority Chairman Ray Gillen said. The Graduate College of Union University is to lease a 36,000-square-foot $8 million building from the Galesi Group. The YMCA signed onto the project last year.
The new site will shed the Big N moniker in favor of the new designation College Park.
The site has held the Big N name for more than 40 years. The Big N department store chain went on a building boom in the early 1960s, constructing department stores and groceries in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Schenectady in 1962 and 1963, according to newspaper accounts.
Construction on the 68,000-square-foot Neisner Big N Discount House was to begin just after Labor Day 1962 on the former ALCO Products property at Maxon Road and Nott Street.
But the Big N was short-lived. It was closed by 1978, not 15 years after it opened.
The building remained, with successive tenants since, most recently the Ellis Hospital School of Nursing. The school finally moved out in summer 2004.
Over the years there were several proposals to redevelop the site. A 1983 proposal had an outlet mall going in, a spokesman then called it “definitely not a flea market.” An extensive arcade amusement area with 30 or more new game machines was also slated. The building and parking lot gradually fell into disrepair. But a small, faded Big N Restaurant sign on a much larger sign post still beckoned passing motorists. Officials repeatedly ran into environmental problems from its industrial past. The Metroplex Development Authority approved a move Wednesday night making it lead agency in the site's state-mandated environmental reviews. “We're removing a blighted spot in the city and replacing it with a fabulous business park,” Gillen said.