DUANESBURG — After more than three decades of doing business at the Western Turnpike and Duanesburg Road intersection, Dave Vincent knew he was ready for a change.

Sales had slowed at the Countryside Mart. There are lingering petroleum contamination issues from its earlier operation as a garage. These issues prompted the 58-year-old former county legislator to consider his options with the property. So in late May, Vincent decided to close the store, the first of what became his half-dozen convenience stores.

“It was a hard decision, but it was the right decision,” he said Tuesday from his second-floor office at the store. “We just had to pull the plug and move on.”

Now Vincent is preparing to demolish the structure which has operated in the heart of Duanesburg’s small downtown for more than a century. By next spring, he intends to move his company’s headquarters, clear the land, remedy any environmental concerns from old petroleum leaks and market the property as a site for development.

The market and service station were once a barn that was originally part of the old Case Hotel, which became better known as the Hub Restaurant. In 1923, the property was converted to a gas station and general store by Gideon Wilber, a town entrepreneur who would eventually help establish the Duanesburg Airport.

For nearly five decades, Wilber operated his business on the corner, just across the street from his house. Vincent said the aptly named Wilber’s Store became a focal point for area youth, who would frequent the small shop to get penny candy, hand-dipped ice cream cones and comic books.

When Wilber retired in 1970, he sold his property to a gasoline wholesaler in Cobleskill, which then leased the shop to Vincent’s mother, Esther. But three years after his mother took it over, the quaint general store struggled.

The cluttered shop wasn’t attracting customers as it once did, Vincent recalled. So after his mother was elected town clerk in 1973, he agreed to take over her store, modernize it and clear its debt.

Vincent then was a recent graduate of the University of Rochester who never bothered taking a business class. But the lack of book smarts in business didn’t keep him from making savvy decisions.

“Almost right away, it became successful,” he said. “It was far more than a typical convenience store.”

Within four years of taking over the business, Vincent was buying the property and expanding. His success at the corner led to his opening five additional Country Mart locations, which would eventually produce annual sales of more than $10 million.

But the completion of the Rotterdam Square mall and proliferation of big box retailers during the 1990s left Vincent with a dwindling pool of employees and customers.

“The business just kind of wore itself out,” he said. “We’re too close to the big boxes and a place like this can’t depend on incidental customers.”

Today, glancing at the signs hanging over the front atrium of the Countryside Mart is a trip through the modern history of the bustling intersection. Vincent still proudly displays one of the aluminum arrows Wilber once posted around town, pointing customers to the business, and a commemorative front license plate celebrating Duanesburg’s bicentennial in 1965.

Vincent also holds photos that show the shop during its heyday — from when gas was 19 cents a gallon in 1927 to when he was working the grocery checkout in 1980. Though he would have preferred to keep the structure, he said it simply didn’t make any economic sense.

And while its impending destruction might strike a bittersweet note for some, Vincent said he’s ready to move on. Most of all, he doesn’t want the 21⁄2-acre lot to stay vacant for long.

“I want to get on with its future as quick as possible,” he said.