Local history: Twin Valu in Cuyahoga Falls was a 24-hour hypermarket

The 24-hour Twin Valu in Cuyahoga Falls wasn’t just a store.

It was a hypermarket.

The place was massive. Perhaps too massive for its own good.

A shrine to late 1980s consumerism, the 180,000-square-foot store offered 60,000 different items on its shelves. There were 102 aisles and 51 checkout lines. The parking lot had room for 1,749 cars.

“You’ve never seen low prices like this,” Twin Valu advertised. “Because you’ve never seen a store like this.”

In 1988, ShopKo Stores Inc., a department store chain based in Green Bay, Wisconsin, paid $2.2 million for 25 acres along Howe Avenue in Cuyahoga Falls. ShopKo was a subsidiary of SuperValu Stores Inc., a suburban Minneapolis company that owned 77 grocery stores in 10 states.

About 20 acres came from the estate of Frances and Bernard Gambaccini, who had a tree service for nearly 40 years at the site. The city vacated Bondellen Avenue to allow five other landowners to sell to Twin Valu.

The construction project cost $10 million (over $26.5 million today) and included the widening of Howe Avenue and the addition of a buffer zone for homes on Magnolia Avenue.

Everything under one roof

Twin Valu’s owners touted the store as “a new way to shop.” Under the hypermarket model, shoppers could buy everything they needed under one roof. The store called it a new concept, although Akron’s F.W. Albrecht Grocery Co. noted that Click had been doing it since 1965.

Twin Valu’s red-and-blue sign arose over 445 Howe Ave. in 1989. Just across the street was the Plaza at Chapel Hill, which included a 65,000-square-foot Finast supermarket, much smaller than the new store.

The world’s first Twin Valu had a soft opening Feb. 26, 1989, but didn’t formally open until March 6. As cars jammed the lot, hundreds of customers attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 9 a.m. before pushing shiny carts through gleaming aisles.

Twin Valu sold everything from Rolex watches to Sugardale hot dogs. More than 600 full- and part-time employees worked at the 24-hour store.

Departments included produce, bakery, deli, meats, seafood, canned goods, health, beauty, electronics, music, sporting goods, automotive, toys, hardware, housewares, clothing, jewelry, pharmacy, a portrait studio, a photo lab, a floral shop and a food court.

“Some people think it’s big, but we have aisle markers, directories and employees to help them find what they are looking for,” store manager John Radtke explained.

Instead of traditional sales, Twin Valu promoted “everyday low prices,” or E.L.P., and “temporary price reductions,” or T.P.R. The store promised to meet or beat any competitor’s prices.

Grand-opening merchandise included an 8.2-ounce tube of Aim toothpaste (97 cents), a 20-ounce box of Cheerios ($2.20), a 12-pack of Coca-Cola ($2.38), a Hanes soft-cup bra ($5.49), a Debbie Gibson cassette ($6.62), Lee’s stonewash jeans ($9.97), a six-pack of BVD men’s briefs ($10.36), a four-pack of Memorex videotape ($12.88), a 1-ounce bottle of Opium perfume ($25.96), a Huffy 10-speed bicycle ($63.63), a Cheftronic microwave oven ($88.88), an AT&T portable typewriter ($139.99) and a Hoover vacuum ($259.94).

And customers could buy it all at 3 a.m. if they wished.

“While attending Twin Valu’s grand opening Monday, yours truly spotted one man who had a basketball, a hammer, a 12-pack of Sprite and six cans of Campbell’s soup in his cart,” Stuart Warner wrote in the Beacon Journal. “Another guy had filled his cart with a bag of Fritos, a roll of paper towels, a screwdriver, a garden hose and two boxes of disposable douche.”

Phil Hartman starred in ads

“Saturday Night Live” cast member Phil Hartman served as a spokesman for Twin Valu in a series of zany TV commercials, including one where he claimed “to have smeared hamburger over every exposed part of his body.”

“Why?” he asked. “To get you to switch to Twin Valu.

“Because if you don’t save a lot of money at Twin Valu, I’ll ride on this elevator filled with hungry, vicious Yorkshire terriers. But I’m so sure that Twin Valu has lower prices, I’ll risk being licked to death.”

Radtke, the store manager, was pleased with the store’s debut.

“So far, everything has met our expectations and exceeded it,” he said. “All of the comments have been very favorable.”

Well, maybe not all of the comments.

Union picketed at Howe store

United Food & Commercial Workers Local 880 had opposed the store since it was first announced, saying Twin Valu’s lower-paying nonunion jobs would displace the higher-paying jobs of unionized competitors.

“No community has ever prospered which has had its members paid less,” UFCW member Mike Curry told the Cuyahoga Falls City Council.

Union members conducted informational pickets and passed out leaflets to customers. Store management accused the protesters of blocking driveways and threatening passersby.

“We will do everything we can to protect our employees and our customers,” Radtke said. “Apparently, the union wants to take jobs and customers away from our store.”

Common Pleas Judge James Murphy granted the store’s request to limit the number of pickets to seven.

Twin Valu opened a second hypermarket in Euclid in 1990 and introduced food-only stores in Jackson Township and Maple Heights, both in 1992. It also bought a 15-acre site in Parma for a store that wasn’t built.

The UFCW removed its pickets in 1992 and tried to organize Twin Valu’s hourly workers. When the effort failed, the union launched a boycott.

At the same time, Twin Valu faced heated competition from Walmart, Super K Mart, Click, Marc’s, Hills, Hyperstore, Sun TV, Circuit City and Toys R Us as well as groceries like Acme, Giant Eagle, Finast and Apples.

Twin Valu had loyal customers, but business declined over the years. Some shoppers said the store was too big and lacked quality goods. Some cited a cleanliness factor and reported a strange odor in the meat department.

The Summit County Health Department fielded complaints about the smell in 1993 and 1994. “It appears that this operation is lacking the personnel, the knowledge or desire to properly operate a business that could have a significant health impact on the general public,” one inspector wrote.

End of the line at Twin Valu

The Howe Avenue store suffered financial losses and dwindled to 400 employees. Making one last attempt at solvency, Twin Valu announced plans to build a 49,000-square-foot addition to share with Best Buy.

The city approved the expansion, but the clock ran out.

In January 1995, owner SuperValu announced it would close its Cuyahoga Falls and Euclid hypermarkets, idling 800 workers.

“The operations being closed were unprofitable and did not warrant continued investment,” SuperValu noted. “The company is examining every facet of our business in order to serve our customers better, build top line growth and improve our earnings performance.”

Bargain hunters stripped the shelves bare as the world’s first Twin Valu closed March 6. In six short years, the store had gone from 60,000 items to zero.

The smaller Finast store across the street made a special advertising pitch to former Twin Valu shoppers.

“We’ve got some special welcoming information for you,” Finast advertised. “We’re the people who save you money!”

SuperValu closed its grocery stores in Jackson Township and Maple Heights a year later, ending Twin Valu.

Too big for one store, the Cuyahoga Falls building turned into two. Target bought the property and shared it with Best Buy, an arrangement that continues nearly 30 years.

As the store prepared to close in 1995, bakery employee Sandy Gnagey wrote a heartfelt letter “to thank all who passed through the portals of Twin Valu.”

“To our patrons: Thank you for your smiles, your banter, the friendship you offered and the loyalty you held,” she wrote. “You shared your lives and opened your hearts and became part of our lives.

“These memories we cherish, and will surely bring smiles to us later, down whatever path life leads us.

“To my co-workers: After six years, we are like family. We’ve shared laughter and love and grief; we’ve toughed out parenting and divorce and marriage, birth and illness and death.

“And now as life would have it, our paths have changed and broadened, some doubling back and some twisting round, some a sharp curve and some straight ahead. But one thing is certain. Whether or not our paths cross again, we know this: We are all better for having known one another.”

Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com

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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Twin Valu in Cuyahoga Falls was a 24-hour hypermarket