Route 8 shopping center sold; Mexican restaurant coming

By WILL STEVENS
Staff writer

A Route 8 shopping center in Sugarcreek Borough has a new owner and a new business coming in.

The plaza – which includes Big Lots, Dollar General, A and E Chinese Buffet and Reno WareHouse, LLC – was purchased for $1.2 million in August by Franklin Commons Shopping Center LLC, of Philadelphia, according to Venango County deed records.

The former Atmosphere building will now be home to a new Mexican restaurant known as Las Margaritas, according to Sugarcreek zoning officer Larry Moyer. The building at one time also housed a Wendy’s restaurant.

Moyer said that he was told by Steve Verstandig, of American Realty LLC/CityWide Properties LLC – an umbrella company of Franklin Commons Shopping Center – that the KFC will be taken down because of its condition, and that there are no plans to build anything in its place.

He also said that he was told there are no plans to add or take away any other businesses from the main building.

Moyer said the building that held Long John Silver’s adjacent to the plaza was not purchased and that there were no plans to do anything with that building.