Longo family sells Uncasville shopping plaza
Montville — The family that has owned Longo’s Plaza on Route 32 in Uncasville for almost six decades has sold the eight-store shopping plaza that began as a fruit shop and has hosted countless Montville businesses over the years.
Antonio Longo built the plaza and opened a fruit store there in the 1950s after the rent went up at his shop in downtown Norwich, his son Joe Longo said Thursday.
The original plaza included a drug store, a coffee shop and a liquor store, Longo said.
When Antonio Longo died, his four sons — Joe, Tony and John and Bill — took over ownership of the plaza.
Joe Longo’s elder brother, John, opened a pizza and grinder restaurant in the plaza that later became A&J’s Café, which he ran with his wife Alice for more than 50 years.
Over the years, the plaza has been divided up into eight stores. It now houses a company that makes electric motors for kayaks, a barber shop, a tailor and a bar called the Turnpike Café.
The three living Longo brothers are now all in or approaching their 80s— John died in 2012 — and Joe said the time had come for them to sell.
“We were just getting too old for it,” he said. “It was best just to sell it.”
The sale to David Piccolo was finalized July 1 and won’t affect any of the current tenants, Longo said. He declined to give the sale price.
Piccolo, a Waterford contractor, owns several other area properties. Until March, he said, his family owned the Rodeway Inn on Cross Road in Waterford.
The Piccolos plan to make some improvements to the property and do some landscaping, Piccolo said.
"We want to update it, of course, because it's a little outdated," he said.
Piccolo said he plans to change the name of the plaza, but has not decided on a new name.
One of the storefronts is empty, he said, and the new owners are taking applications for a new tenant.
Candy McCarthy, who moved the barber shop she owns into the plaza in 2012, said she was looking forward to working with the Piccolos, though the Longos were great landlords.
"They've been wonderful," she said of the Longo family. "Nobody will ever replace Joe Longo in my book, but the new people are very nice as well."
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