Mamdanis plan to spend a whopping $30M to open NYC-owned supermarket stuns grocery executives: I almost fell back

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to build a $30 million, city-owned grocery store in Harlem next year has stunned supermarket executives — who note that the lavishly-priced project looks like a threat to the neighborhood’s already-struggling grocers, The Post has learned.Hizzoner unveiled his plan to open the first of five such taxpayer-funded stores – a cornerstone of his campaign last fall to slash food prices for lower-income residents – during a speech on Sunday marking his first 100 days in office. “I almost fell back when I saw the $30 million number,” Anthony Pena, president of the National Supermarket Association, told The Post.“Even a high end, gourmet store in the middle of Manhattan wouldn’t cost that much to build.”Avi Kaner, the former owner of New York’s 17-store Morton Williams grocery chain, said “$30 million is an awful lot to spend to build one supermarket.” Kaner and Pena both said that a typical, 15,000-square-foot store without elevators or escalators costs under $10 million to build. But it was the location of the store that raised even greater concerns with some executives.

The city-owned store will be built on an empty lot next to La Marqueta, a decades-old, city-owned marketplace located under the Metro North railroad tracks at the corner of East 115th Street and Park Avenue.The problem: The new location is far from qualifying as a so-called “food desert” — a struggling neighborhood where supermarket closures have made groceries hard to come by.Instead, there are already five grocery stores within a two-block radius of La Marqueta, including Fine Fare, City Fresh and Cherry Valley, according to NSA data.Fifteen stores are located within five blocks of the site.It’s a “slap in the face” to the city’s struggling independent grocers and “those store owners are furious,” Pena said.

He added that it’s hard to cut prices “when your property taxes are going up by 10%.”Their numbers are dwindling –...