Chris Gonsalves, of North Providence, stocks shelves at the new PriceRite store, set to open at Eagle Square in Providence on Sunday. PriceRite is taking over the spot vacated by Shaw’s.

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The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

Residents of Providence’s Valley section will have an easier trip for groceries come Sunday as the PriceRite grocery chain opens a store in the Eagle Square shopping center.

The new PriceRite is filling a 55,000-square-foot space left vacant last summer when Shaw’s Supermarkets closed a store. It’s a tactic the Wethersfield, Conn., chain often employs.

“We take over existing buildings,” said Kurt Schultz, a PriceRite spokesman.

The Valley section’s gain is Olneyville’s loss as the PriceRite operation is moving from a smaller building on Manton Avenue, about a mile from Eagle Square. PriceRite had occupied its spot in Olneyville since 1998. PriceRite has five years left on the lease for the Olneyville store, Schultz said, there are no plans yet to sublet the building. The Olneyville store will close tomorrow at 6 p.m.

The new space is about one-third larger than the building PriceRite will vacate — itself a spot that once housed a store belonging to the defunct Almacs chain.

“[Customers] said they would like us to carry more products,” Schultz said. “We were limited in the other store.”

The new PriceRite includes deli and fish counters, two features atypical of PriceRite stores. There also are wide, separate, aisles devoted solely to Italian and Goya-brand Hispanic foods, as well as an expansive produce department.

“It’s what we want to be known for — our produce,” said Schultz as he walked past construction workers fastening displays in place and clerks stocking shelves in advance of the opening.

Shoppers familiar with PriceRite will find its standard array of offerings as well: gallon-sized milk jugs and two or three varieties of most items — a store brand and one or two national brands for each. The store will carry about 3,700 items, all of them at cut-rate prices.

PriceRite runs 33 limited-assortment stores in the Northeast.

Aside from the deli and fish counters in the new Providence store, PriceRite uses a self-service format nearly identical to the latest entrant in the state’s supermarket sector — German grocer Aldi.

Most goods are stocked in boxes or on pallets to limit handling by clerks. Neither chain uses coupons or takes personal checks. They don’t use customer-loyalty cards. Both advertise rarely, if ever.

“What we like to do is not take the coupon and lower the price,” of goods, Schultz said by way of example.

Like Aldi, PriceRite also charges for bags — 10 cents at a PriceRite.

The tactics are all part of a strategy to undercut rival stores.

Shaw’s closed its stores in Providence and Pawtucket on Sept. 1 because of poor sales. The West Bridgewater, Mass., chain has lost market share in each New England state in the last three years, according to statistics compiled by The Griffin Report of Food Marketing.

The decision to pull out of Providence and Pawtucket left two inner-city shopping centers without anchor tenants. The second store was at 50 Ann Mary St., Pawtucket

Opened in 2003, the Eagle Square shopping center is seen as a symbol of the neighborhood’s revitalization efforts.

The developers saved all or most of four mill buildings even as they sacrificed others to make room for a 65,000-square-foot Shaw’s store, about 20 other retailers, plus condominiums and offices. Six new buildings blend with the mills, using brick on the outside and mill-like architectural details.

Other redevelopment work, such as Monohasset Mill on Eagle Street and Rising Sun Mills on Valley Street, sprung up after the Eagle Square project got under way. Still in its infancy is the massive $333-million American Locomotive Works.

pgrimald@projo.com