Hannaford buys four Graves locations

Graves Supermarkets will turn over ownership this week of three of its five stores while retaining the company’s home store in Aroostook County.

The purchase by Scarborough-based Hannaford Bros. of Graves stores in Hampden, Dover-Foxcroft and Camden is scheduled to close Friday, company president Robert Graves Jr. said Wednesday. Operation of those three stores, along with a store in Bar Harbor, will be turned over at the end of the year, he said.

Hannaford also plans to purchase the Camden shopping plaza in which the Graves store is located.

A Hannaford Bros. representative reached Tuesday for comment referred questions to a July press release announcing the sale.

Terms of the sales were not disclosed.

The Graves company, founded in Mars Hill in 1935 and now run by the family’s third generation, will keep its home store in Presque Isle, Graves said.

The sell-off of the other four stores was prompted by a verbal agreement the family had with Hannaford to sell the stores when the time came, Graves said.

“We just decided it was time,” he said.

The company purchased the Dover-Foxcroft store in 1995, and the Camden and Bar Harbor stores in 1998. The Hampden store opened in 2002.

Dana Edwards, who worked for Hannaford for 30 years and now is director of operations for Graves Supermarkets, intends to lease and operate the Hampden and Dover-Foxcroft stores.

Edwards has said he will keep the employees at the two stores, and Hannaford intends to employ the associates at the Bar Harbor and Camden locations, Graves said. A combined 350 people are employed among the four stores, he said.

In Hampden, Hannaford will benefit from a 10-year tax-increment financing agreement that Graves signed with the town in 2001, which was offered to encourage location of a quality grocery store in town.

The remaining seven years of the agreement was transferred Monday to Hannaford by a unanimous vote of the Town Council, meaning an annual savings to the company of nearly $20,000 in real estate taxes. A Hannaford representative at Monday’s council meeting said the tax break will be forwarded to Edwards as the Hampden store’s operator.

Town Manager Susan Lessard said Tuesday that town officials hope the store will remain a well-run, family-operated business.

“It offers a really good product in a really good environment,” she said.