UPDATE OCT 25, 2017
Click to see the grand opening day!
Tech Company ACDI Opens in Downtown Benton with 70 Employees
https://www.mysaline.com/tech-company-acdi-opens-in-downtown-benton-with-70-employees/
UPDATE SEPT 21, 2015
We heard last week that someone had just bought the old Harvest Foods building in downtown Benton. But who? Speculation ran wild as people chatted up the possibilities. However, I had spoken to people who knew and was assured that 1) you won’t shop there and 2) you won’t eat there.
That means not a grocery or other type of store and not a restaurant. Yet another source close to the deal said it’s not a gym like some people were saying. Some even said it might be a big liquor store. We knew it was too close to a church for that, plus hint #1 excluded that possibility too.
It’s actually a tech company owned by Benton residents Josh and Mandy Lane. It’s a company that describes themselves as:
Access Control Devices Incorporated (ACDI): A leading Professional Services company and the #1 distributor of PaperCut Software in North America and Canada.
This may not seem very exciting to you until you see the clients who use their services are: MLB Players, University of Michigan, Department of Veteran Affairs, JCP, Hawker Beechcraft, Oklahoma City Thunder and Harvard University, to name a few.
You can visit the ACDI website, Facebook and Twitter accounts.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE 09/15/15:
There’s a big SOLD sticker on the For Sale sign at the old Harvest Foods building in downtown Benton. The store has sat empty since 2009 when Affiliated Foods went belly-up and caused many grocery stores to do the same.
Locals – especially business neighbors like Smith-Caldwell Drug Store, right across Main Street – will be eager to know what’s going in there. I can’t tell you yet what it will be, but I can tell you what it isn’t. It’s not a grocery store and not a restaurant (UPDATE: and no, not a gym).
That still leaves plenty to the imagination. I’ll post more info as it becomes available.