For months, customers at the Forest Glen Annex commissary in Silver Spring, Maryland, have asked: When will our commissary reopen?
As of now, the answer remains unclear.
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The garrison commander closed the store in the Washington suburbs in May because of “visible cracks observed in the walls and floor,” said Supunnee Ulibarri, spokeswoman for the Defense Commissary Agency’s Central/Eastern United States and Europe regions.
“Right now, we cannot address reopening until we complete the assessments of the Forest Glen commissary for safety,” Ulibarri said.
“Nobody knows what’s going on and nobody will return emails or voice messages [to the commissary agency],” a retired Army officer who shops at the Forest Glen Annex commissary told Military Times. “The only information that I was able to ascertain was that the building had floor structural damage and that it would be closed until further notice. … I’m not sure if this is a trend with several commissaries.”
The Forest Glen Annex commissary is among at least two commissaries this year to have been shut down for months due to structural issues. Military Times recently reported on the closure of the commissary at Mitchel Field, New York, where customers are also having trouble getting answers about the timeline for reopening their store, which closed in early July.
Commissaries are designed to offer discounted groceries as a benefit for eligible service members, veterans and their families.
There are 28,316 eligible commissary shopper households within 20 miles of the Forest Glen commissary, according to Ulibarri. Of these, 5,852 are active duty.
The Mitchel Field and Forest Glen commissaries are the only commissaries currently shut down because of facility infrastructure problems, Ulibarri said.
There is no issue with funding to make the repairs in either case, she said. The funding for construction, repairs and renovation of commissary buildings comes from the 5% surcharge customers pay at checkout.
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As with the Mitchel Field commissary, officials are still assessing the structural damage of the Forest Glen store, an aging facility built in 1971.
“In late June, structural and geotechnical assessments were completed and recommendations were made to keep the commissary closed until an additional geotechnical investigation could be conducted,” Ulibarri said. A contract for that assessment was awarded in September; the site investigations continue, with a report due in early 2025.
These assessments, followed by plans for repair, are necessary to ensure a safe, healthy shopping and working environment for customers and employees, Ulibarri said.
Meanwhile, like the Mitchel Field commissary, officials have set up weekly drop-off deliveries for Forest Glen customers through the commissary agency’s Click2Go system. Customers must place their orders at least 48 hours before the Thursday drop-off. Orders are filled from the Fort Myer, Virginia, commissary nearly 15 miles away and delivered to the Forest Glen store’s parking lot, where customers can pick up their orders from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursdays.
Forest Glen customers should go to the Click2Go program by logging into their shop.commissaries.com account and choosing the “Fort Myer Commissary” location. After choosing the products, when checking out, customers must select “switch to drop-off” and select “Forest Glen” as their drop-off location. Customers must also pay online, as the “pay in store” option remains unavailable due to the temporary closure.
Karen has covered military families, quality of life and consumer issues for Military Times for more than 30 years, and is co-author of a chapter on media coverage of military families in the book "A Battle Plan for Supporting Military Families." She previously worked for newspapers in Guam, Norfolk, Jacksonville, Fla., and Athens, Ga.
