BiLo Foods will close its doors in Greenville Plaza in about a month.

Owned by Syracuse, N.Y.-based Penn Traffic Co., the Hempfield Township store is being closed because it's underperforming, said Marc Jampole, a Penn Traffic spokesman.

"We informed the employees on Monday we're closing the store in about 30 days,'' he said. He added the company is seeking to place as many of the store's 28 full- and part-time employees as possible in other locations.

He declined to say specifically if the 37,000-square-foot store was hurt by the nearby Wal-Mart Supercenter which opened in October 2000.

"We wouldn't comment on that,'' Jampole said. "In many of our markets we face Wal-Mart and do well against them, along with other big chains like Giant Eagle. To say it was Wal-Mart or not Wal-Mart would be speculation.''

But he later added, "You can speculate why, but I can't.''

Since emerging from a quick two-month Chapter 11 bankruptcy three years ago, Penn Traffic has been performing well, he said. Before entering bankruptcy, the company had remodeled 60 percent of total store footage but that left the chain mired in debt.

As part of the bankruptcy process, Penn Traffic closed or sold 60 of its stores, including one in Franklin.

Penn Traffic's third-quarter results showed it had the highest same-store sales increases in eight years, Jampole said.

With 218 stores in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, upstate New York, Vermont and New Hampshire, Penn Traffic operates supermarkets under the names BiLo, Riverside, P&C, Quality and Big Bear.

Penn Traffic has stores in the Meadville, Oil City, Erie and Clarion areas.