In a year or so, shoppers in Long Bay may have another place to buy their groceries.
Plaza Extra confirmed Tuesday it plans to build a new supermarket on the 2-acre Mandela Circle property it purchased earlier this month from the Friends of the V.I. National Park for $2 million.
"We hope to put another Plaza Extra there, hopefully within the next two years," said Fathi Yusuf, secretary in charge of Plessen Enterprises, which owns Plaza Extra. "It should be a good, central location."
The property is on the northwest side of the circle, across the street from Pueblo and just south of the Blockbuster Video store in Vitraco Mall. A Kmart billboard currently stands there.
A store in Mandela Circle would add a second Plaza Extra on St. Thomas to the one in Tutu Park Mall. At this point, the new building would only contain a Plaza Extra supermarket, Yusuf said.
The new location is aimed attracting customers from the west side of St. Thomas, he said.
"It's more convenient to some of our customers on the west side," he said. "We have a lot of customers from all over the island, especially from the west, and if we could put a store closer to them, they would certainly appreciate it."
The Mandela property was given to the Friends of the V.I. National Park in 1997 by a New York philanthropist.