NEW: Old Benny’s Transformed to New Dave’s Marketplace Flagship Store
GoLocalProv Business Team
NEW: Old Benny’s Transformed to New Dave’s Marketplace Flagship Store
Benny’s closed in 2016 and the company sold many of the properties to Carpionato.
New Dave's to be Flagship Store
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe new 32,263 square foot state-of-the-art Dave’s will be the company’s flagship store, and is part of new shopping plaza built by Carpionato Group that is across the street from the original Dave’s store -- and is on the site where Dave’s Fresh Marketplace founder Dave Cesario’s first fruit and vegetable stand was located more than 50-years ago.
“Since its founding as a fruit and vegetable stand more than a half-century ago, Dave’s Fresh Marketplace has become an icon in the Ocean State, and so it is only fitting that Dave’s Store Number One is returning to its birthplace and replacing Benny’s, another icon held warmly by Rhode Islanders,” said K. MacArthur Coates, President & CEO of Carpionato Group.
The 26-acre site also includes a new 6,500 square foot retail space in-line with Dave’s as well an existing freestanding 2,246 sq/ ft Taco Bell. Additionally, a soon to be built 2,500 square foot building that will partially house a Citizens Bank branch which will move from across the street. That building is expected to be turned over to Citizens Bank in early 2021.
It is located at 2574 West Shore Road in Warwick.
Carpionatos on Record
“My husband, Alfred Carpionato and Dave Cesario grew up in the same neighborhood and attended school together as boys,” noted Sheryl Carpionato, a Trustee of Carpionato Group. “My husband’s lifelong commitment to Rhode Island, like Dave Cesario’s, continues to guide us in all that we do and to invest in the Ocean State to create economic opportunity. We are so pleased to partner with Dave’s Fresh Marketplace to bring Dave’s store number one back where it all began and to a reimagined shopping plaza that will add an exciting new retail mix and enhanced traffic patterns in the neighborhood,” said Mrs. Carpionato.
As part of the redevelopment of this site, Carpionato Group worked closely with the City of Warwick to reconfigure traffic congestion in the area which is close to the merge of West Shore Road and Sandy Lane. Roadway improvements have been made and pending approval of RIDOT a new traffic light at the entrance to the plaza will be installed that will make it easier to get in to and out of Dave’s and the other stores in the plaza.
In November 2017, Carpionato Group purchased 29 former Benny’s locations in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts and has to date redeveloped locations featuring medical tenants such as Lifespan, and retail stores including Ocean State Job Lot, Dollar General, Ace Hardware, Chipotle, O’Reilly’s Autoparts, Big Lots and more.