BY DENNIS LYNCH | Eat your heart out, Union Square.
Trader Joe’s supermarket is coming to the Essex St. Crossing superdevelopment, the city’s Economic Development Corporation announced on Tuesday.
The popular “neighborhood” grocery store will be located at 146 Clinton St. at the corner of Broome Street at the southern end of the mixed-use development, and will open in 2018, according to E.D.C. It will not sell alcohol, so thirsty shoppers will still have to shlep up to Union Square for their fixes of “two-buck Chuck” wine.
Regardless, local leaders embraced the news, including Councilmember Margaret Chin and Community Board 3 Chairperson Jamie Rogers, who noted the positive response locals had to news of a Trader Joe’s coming to the neighborhood.
“Previous reports of attempt to have Trader Joe’s expand within Community Board 3 were met with enthusiasm by the community,” Rogers said. “They will be very happy to hear that we have a firm commitment of Trader Joe’s at Essex Crossing.”
Chin mentioned the neighborhood was “historically underserved by quality grocery stores.” However, the new store will be directly across Grand St. from a Fine Fare supermarket and will be a few blocks from another Fine Fare and a Key Food north of Delancey St.
The supermarket will share its plot with 206 residential rental units, a 22,000-square-foot Planet Fitness gym and roughly 48,000 more square feet of commercial space. It will be two blocks from the Williamsburg Bridge bike and pedestrian path entrances at Clinton and Delancey Sts. and roughly four blocks from the Essex St. subway station, making it convenient for subway riders.
Essex Crossing, in total, is planned to have 1.9 million square feet of residential, commercial and community space across roughly six blocks. There will be 1,000 total residential rental units; half will be priced as affordable for low-, moderate- and middle-income families.
The $1 billion development will also feature a 150,000-square-foot European-inspired food-focused public market space dubbed Market Line that will run continuously between Essex Crossing’s lots both above- and belowground.
Other tenants that have committed to Essex Crossing include a Regal Cinemas movie theater, a Splitville Luxury Lanes bowling alley, and the 40,000-square-foot New York University Langone Joan H. and Preston Robert Tisch Medical Center.
Developers hope the entire Essex Crossing project will be done by 2024.
