Progress

Former Penguins enforcer giving up battling for batter in new W-B venture

By Jerry Lynott jlynott@timesleader.com
Business Writer
Jerry Lynott on Facebook   |   @TLJerryLynott on Twitter

WILKES-BARRE – Known as a tough guy on the ice for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, former enforcer Dennis Bonvie is showing his sweet side as he brings a gourmet cookie franchise to the University Commons downtown.

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A Blue Chip Gourmet store will be located in the University Commons when former Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins hockey player Dennis Bonvie brings the coffee and treats to the downtown.

CLARK VAN ORDEN/THE TIMES LEADER

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Blue Chip Gourmet will be the latest tenant in the project built around the WB Movies 14 complex and occupy a 1,559-square-foot spot on the ground floor at the corner of East Northampton and South Main streets.

Bonvie, 35, said he and his partners in the venture got interested in the idea last year. He spoke with Mayor Tom Leighton and Todd Vonderheid of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry about it and it seemed like the right fit.

“The people of Wilkes-Barre have been very good to me and my family,” Bonvie said from Canada on Monday.

In the 10 years Bonvie has been in the area, he has seen the city when it was at its worst and is contributing to its turnaround, Leighton said.

“He made a substantial investment in downtown,” the mayor said of Bonvie.

“Dennis Bonvie had a very successful career as a hockey player; I’m sure he’s going to have a very successful career as a business owner in downtown Wilkes-Barre,” Leighton said.

Blue Chip features fresh-baked cookies, its own brand of ice cream and coffee drinks, plus breakfast and lunch items served in a casual dining environment. It will be the chain’s seventh store overall and first in Pennsylvania. Other stores are in Kansas, Missouri and Ohio.

Construction of the store is to begin soon to prepare for an opening on the weekend of the St. Patrick’s Day parade on March 15.

Bonvie, who retired last year from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, is the first tenant announced since Carlsberg Management Co. of Los Angeles took over the commercial space component of the $31 million mixed-use project developed by the chamber. Blue Chip will join a Quiznos sandwich shop and Januzzi’s Pizza & Subs restaurant.

In December, Carlsberg assumed the chamber’s $8.4 million bank note in the deal and set to work filling vacant street-level space. It will spend more than $1 million getting the space ready for tenants. Another firm, Susquehanna Real Estate of York, will have the responsibility of turning 30,000 square feet of space on the upper floors into 21 condominium lofts. The chamber retains a 25 percent ownership share in the project.

A month ago, Carlsberg’s Bill Geary mentioned the first new tenant would be a retail establishment that sells coffee, cookies and ice cream. At the time he said he could not release all the details until the lease was signed.

As he did back then, Geary hinted at more to come.

“It’s relatively small, but it’s a key corner,” Geary said Monday. Bonvie’s store will be the catalyst for others and there might be announcements in the future, Geary added.

Vonderheid, president and chief executive officer of the chamber, made no apologies for the pace at which tenants are being signed, saying it wants to fill it with the right ones.

“It’s exactly what Bill Geary and we have been saying for a long time,” Vonderheid said. “We’re certain we can fill that space.”

Jerry Lynott, a Times Leader staff writer, can be contacted at 570 829-7237.