For years, Grants Supermarket in Richlands has been a fixture of Wilma Keen’s weekly routine. When she saw online that the store was closing, she thought it was a joke.
The grocery store, one of only two in town, is part of a chain local to Southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia. The closing was announced on Sunday. The store released a statement saying the shutdown is the result of high utility bills from the town of Richlands, which is one of the few towns in Virginia that runs its own public electric utility.
Over the past two years, the store’s bill has averaged $25,000 a month, the statement said. It will be shuttered at the end of business Saturday.
“Like many families and businesses throughout our community, we have struggled with increasing utility expenses,” the statement said. “With the lease nearing its end, these continuing costs made the difficult decision not to renew unavoidable.”
Grants Supermarket executives did not respond to a request for comment. The Richlands store manager declined to comment.
Keen has visited the store once a week since its opening 25 years ago, she said, for its cheap prices on quality meats and other goods. She lives about 20 minutes away in Buchanan County.
She went to the store Thursday to buy whatever she felt like buying, she said, and stock up on her favorite vanilla cinnamon coffee creamer.
“It’s sad,” Keen said as she shopped. “Because now I’m sitting here thinking, what’s going to close next? Will Roses close next? Will CVS close next? I work at H&R Block, which is dead center in the town of Richlands. I wonder how much their power bills are. Everything is going to try to get out of town, I guess.”
The Tazewell County town of about 5,050 residents has operated its own municipal electric service providing power for residents and businesses since 1922. It has 2,500 customers, according to its website. It also manages public water utilities for the town, with its treatment facility servicing communities outside of town limits, too, like Cedar Bluff, Raven and Doran.
The town council raised electric rates this past summer. Town council member Laura Mollo believes that the higher rates are to account for future debt from a major project to build a generator for the area’s power grid, she said in an interview.
The town’s official estimate of the generator cost is $14 million, installed by North Carolina-based contractor Quantum Power Inc. The town began to solicit grants for the project in 2024 while also planning to take on debt. But Mollo said that to her knowledge, the cost will now likely be closer to $19 million.
The town manager, Don Marr, did not respond to emailed questions about the generator project’s timeline, its cost to the town and the project’s connection to the residents’ electric bills.
Quantum Power representatives have told the town council at various meetings this year that the original contract amount is no longer viable because of additional studies, delays in permitting and other unexpected costs. The town will likely have to spend additional money, according to the company’s representatives.
“Part of it will come from contingency, and part of it the town will have to come up with,” Quantum Power President Mark Romano told council members in February.
Back in 2024, Romano said it would likely take 15 months to complete, according to council meeting minutes, and the town manager at the time, Jason May, said he could see the generator up and running by early 2026.
Since then, residential rates have gone up about 66%, according to rate schedule records from 2024 and 2026. The energy rates for large stores, like Grants Supermarket, have doubled.
The town’s rates, calculated as per kilowatt hour, are currently about 4 cents higher than Appalachian Power, the utility company that provides electricity across Southwest Virginia. That’s almost 25% more expensive.
“I go to get groceries, and I have people come up to me, and some people are in tears, showing me their electric bills,” Mollo said.
Based on her knowledge, the generator project’s finish line has now been pushed to the end of 2027, and the debt won’t be paid off until 2050.
Mollo has resolved not to vote yes on any more spending for the generator project, she said. Originally, the generator was supposed to save residents money because the town wouldn’t have to purchase electricity from Appalachian Power and feed it to the public power grid. The town budgeted $7 million to purchase power this fiscal year, according to budget documents.
Several council members and Quantum Power have said during meetings that, ultimately, the annual electricity savings from the generator will pay off the debt incurred by the project.
But the way the project has played out, with delayed timelines and escalating costs, has rubbed Mollo the wrong way, she said.
Alongside rising fees for trash and sewer, and 10% penalties for missed bills, Mollo said she doesn’t see how the town can move forward without giving residents some relief. Now, an affordable grocery store has been pushed out of town — one that often donated to local sports teams and gave back to the community too, she said.
“This is going to leave us with one grocery store,” Mollo said, referring to the local Food Lion. “When places don’t have competition, the fear is always that the prices will raise.”
There’s also the loss of jobs that the store provided, she said, and she doesn’t know how much more the town can take.
