Fairway eyes vacant A&P site: Deals and deeds
Fairway Market, the iconic New York City grocer that opened its first Westchester County store two years ago, is close to signing a lease in the town of Greenburgh for its second Westchester supermarket, according to sources.
Fairway is expected to lease the former A&P store at Crossroads Shopping Center on Route 119. The 70,000-square-foot space has been vacant since April 2011.
The shopping center”™s owner, Heyman Properties in Westport, Conn., did not respond to requests for comment on the reported pending lease deal.
A spokesman for Fairway Group Holdings Corp. said, “Fairway does not comment until deals are signed.”
Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner said he heard “rumors” but had received no official notice of the Fairway deal from the Crossroads landlord.
“The community desperately needs a supermarket at this location,” Feiner said in an email. “Fairway would be a spectacular addition. Having Fairway at this location would help revitalize the Crossroads Shopping Center, which has experienced vacancies in recent months. We could turn Crossroads into another Midway Shopping Center ”“ a shopping center that is now one of the most successful in Greenburgh, thanks to ShopRite.” ShopRite opened as that Central Avenue shopping center”™s anchor supermarket in early 2011.
The former A&P store is not the only conspicuous vacancy in the 310,000-square-foot Crossroads complex. In May, Barnes & Noble closed its bookstore there.
Fairway Market in April 2010 opened a $10 million, 75,000-square-foot supermarket at Post Road Plaza Shopping Center in Pelham Manor. Later that year, it opened its first Connecticut store in a 70,000-square-foot space at Harbor Point in Stamford.
The company”™s expansion from Manhattan into the tristate suburban market and New York City boroughs in recent years has been spurred by Sterling Investment Partners, a private equity firm in Westport. Sterling in 2008 reportedly paid about $150 million to acquire shares in the business formerly held by two of Fairway”™s founding partners. Fairway CEO Howard Glickberg and his son Daniel, executive vice president, represent the third and fourth generations in their nearly 80-year-old family business.
New owners for Rye office building
An underoccupied class-A office building in Rye that sold for $22.6 million about seven years ago has been acquired for $10.8 million by a joint-venture partnership that includes a principal in the former ownership.
Baywater Properties, of Darien, Conn., and WillKen Investments announced their joint venture with a $536 million real estate investment fund managed by True North Management Group in White Plains to acquire 411 Theodore Fremd Ave., a three-story, 112,000-square-foot office building. WillKen Investments is an affiliate of Willett Companies L.L.C., headed by Frank Kenny and headquartered in the sold building in Rye.
R. David Genovese, co-founder of 11-year-old Baywater Properties, said the office building is 60 percent occupied.
The partners in a press release said they plan to invest “significant sums” in renovations to building lobbies, common areas and amenities. They said they would provide turnkey office space to tenants.
Cushman & Wakefield Inc. brokers Glenn Walsh and Matthew Lisk have been retained as leasing agents for the property.