NYC’s First City-Owned Grocery Store to Open in the Bronx by the End of 2027

NEW YORK CITY—The first city-run grocery store is slated to open in the Bronx by the end of 2027 at the site of the now-closed Spofford Juvenile Detention Center, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced at a May 18 rally of supporters and union members.

The 20,000-square-foot space that will house the grocery store is part of a New York City Economic Development Corp. project called The Peninsula, which transformed the detention center into a campus for affordable housing and office space.

The Peninsula is in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx, not far from Hunts Point Cooperative Market, the largest food distribution site in the world and a major hub for restaurants and grocery stores in the region.

Mamdani said a sharp contrast exists between what’s available to wholesalers and what’s available to residents.

Wholesalers “can pick between some of the ripest produce in the region, some of the freshest fish on the East Coast, some of the highest quality meat anywhere in the country,” while many who live in the neighborhood don’t have access to such high-quality food, Mamdani said.

According to Maria Torres, CEO of The Point, a local community development corporation, “Hunts Point supplies approximately 25 percent of the city’s produce, yet the local community struggles with some of the highest rates of food insecurity in the nation.”

Torres said there is just one supermarket for the 15,000 residents of Hunts Point.

Hunts Point is the second city-run grocery store location to be announced. In April, Mamdani announced a city-run grocery store at The Marqueta in East Harlem. A new building will be designed and built for that store, which will open in 2029. The mayor is planning to open a city-run store in each borough, with an estimated total cost of $70 million.

Mamdani’s office has said that the city-run grocery stores will focus on a “core basket of goods,” food staples that will be priced a set percentage below market prices. However, other items at the store will not be priced lower than nearby privately owned grocery stores.

Asked whether the mayor will monitor the city-run markets’ effect on privately run stores, Jeanny Pak, interim president of the Economic Development Corporation, said the city is in contact with bodegas and the National Supermarket Association.

Mamdani said the city will continue to reach out to privately owned grocers well after the city-run stores are up and operating.

“Our vision for a healthy ecosystem is a city-run grocery store alongside flourishing private market grocery stores as well as bodegas,” he said.

President of the National Supermarket Association Anthony Peña said grocers don’t welcome the prospect of competing with city-owned, tax-free stores.

He said the association would like to see the city “supporting and strengthening existing neighborhood supermarkets not undermining them,” Peña said in an emailed statement.

“Independent supermarkets remained open during difficult times, created local jobs, provided culturally relevant products, and helped stabilize neighborhoods long before government discussions about food access became mainstream,” he said.

Peña said many of his members are facing labor costs, theft, inflation, and insurance expenses and operate with extremely thin margins.

When Mamdani announced the first city-owned grocery store at his 100-days-in-office rally on April 12, City Council Speaker Julie Menin released a statement saying she would seek input from local businesses and bodegas before supporting the plan.

City-run grocery stores in Missouri and Florida closed after struggling to make a profit in an industry known to have very small profit margins.