A new 65,000-square-foot ShopRite has opened in Cortlandt Crossing Shopping Center, representing a milestone in the development of the newest retail center in the town from Acadia Realty Trust.
The opening follows closely that of Homesense, an off-price home goods store that serves as the plaza”™s second anchor tenant and was the first business to open in the newly constructed plaza.
ShopRite officials opened the store for a media tour Nov. 2, as employees scurried to finish stocking fruit displays and tidy up aisles for the premiere. Two days later, the store opened with a ceremony that included corporate and local elected officials. The store marks an expansion in the town for the grocer, which previously operated a smaller store less than a mile away on Route 6 at 2094 E. Main St. That store closed.
Jon Paul Lake, store director for the new grocery location, said the company had simply outgrown its former location and wanted to offer customers more choices. The larger space provides wider aisles, a larger customer pickup and delivery center and expansions of the bakery, dairy, meats and fruit and produce departments. The store includes a smoothie bar for customers as well, a new offering compared to the previous location.
“The old building was a little tight for us, so we were able to expand here to really expand our offerings and try to get as much variety as we can for our guests,” Lake said. “We understand that”™s really what our guests want. They want more variety, more choices, at affordable prices.”
The tour stressed customer amenities that ShopRite officials say make it stand out in the grocery market. The store has in-house trained artisan butchers, daily deliveries of fresh seafood and a dairy section Lake said is about 40 percent larger to allow for a wider variety of popular niche items, such as gut health probiotics and organic milks and yogurts.
The expanded Cortlandt store represents the latest in a series of investments from the store chain, which is part of the New Jersey-based Wakefern Food Corp., the largest supermarket cooperative in the U.S. ShopRite also last year expanded and renovated its store in Croton-on-Hudson and plans to open a 70,000-square-foot store in Mount Kisco at 333 N. Bedford Road, a mostly industrial plaza owned by Diamond Properties that the village approved for retail use earlier this year.
ShopRite is the anchor tenant for Cortlandt Crossing, an estimated $65 million, 130,000-square-foot commercial retail center along the north side of Route 6. Acadia started construction in October 2016.
Once completed, the plaza will include a 104,000-square-foot main building and three standalone buildings with about 400 parking spaces.
Acadia also owns and operates Cortlandt Town Center, a shopping center across the street that is home to Walmart, Marshalls, PetSmart, Barnes & Noble and Best Buy among other tenants.
The ShopRite opening comes just two weeks after Cortlandt Crossing had its first grand opening. Homesense, a Canadian chain of discount home furnishing stores operated by TJX Companies, opened in October in a 25,000-square-foot store opposite ShopRite as part of a planned expansion into the U.S.
“We could not have identified two better anchor tenants to lead the opening of Cortlandt Crossing,” said Christopher Conlon, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Acadia Realty. “These anchors resonate perfectly with the communities in and around Cortlandt, but also provide relevance and enthusiasm with the other retailers we expect to join the project in 2019.”
There is a roughly 12,000-square-foot retail space that is between Homesense and ShopRite, for which a tenant has not yet been announced. The three standalone buildings in the master plan are 9,000, 8,000 and 5,000 square feet.
Verizon will open a 3,000-square-foot store in the 9,000-square-foot standalone building, which is still under construction. Conlon told the Business Journal in July that food tenants will be included in the mix for the other spaces.
Conlon said Nov. 5 to expect announcements for tenants of the additional spaces next year. Construction of the entire center is expected to wrap up halfway through 2019.
Acadia Realty also owns the Bedford Green Shopping Center in Bedford Hills and the Crossroads Shopping Center in White Plains.
