Costello's Ace Hardware in Melville closing, CEO says

Melville doesn’t have enough do-it-yourself customers to support business at a Costello’s Ace Hardware store that has been struggling in the area, a company official said. 

That is a major reason that the 11,500-square-foot store at 720 Walt Whitman Rd. will close by the end of September, said Michael Costello, CEO of the Deer Park-based company, which is the largest independent hardware retailer on Long Island.

The Melville store has struggled since opening in 2017, except for a brief increase in business during the COVID-19 pandemic when quarantined residents sprucing up their homes boosted sales in the home improvement industry, Michael Costello said. The pandemic started in early 2020 and was declared officially over in May 2023.

The store sells power and hand tools, gardening equipment, paint, electrical supplies, grills and other items.

The store is located in an area where homeowners are more likely to hire professionals for their home repairs, Costello said.

“It’s a very affluent market and I think, ultimately, a lot of those customers in Melville are not doing a lot of their own repairs. And we thrive on that” do-it-yourself customer, he said.

Melville's median annual household income from 2019 to 2023 was $155,675, compared to $128,329 in Suffolk County and $143,408 in Nassau County, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. 

Over the years, Costello’s tried to improve sales at the Melville store by taking several measures, including hiring new management and updating the look of the store, Michael Costello said.

“We got to the point where, unfortunately, the best course of action was just to close the store,” he said.

The Melville store employs about 15 people, who have been offered jobs at the hardware chain’s other stores, including locations in Farmingdale, Massapequa and Deer Park, he said.

A liquidation sale will start in the Melville store Wednesday, he said.

Costello’s Ace Hardware has 51 stores, about half of which are on Long Island. The rest are in New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The original store in Deer Park was established in 1973.

Michael Costello’s father, Vincent Costello, acquired that store in 1976.

Costello's stores are part of the Ace Hardware cooperative, an Oak Brook, Illinois-based entity that serves more than 8,700 locally owned and operated stores in multiple countries, including almost 5,200 Ace stores in the United States.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.