Office-To-Apts Building Sold For $8M

With all of these new residential builds in the city, and less parking, the city needs to bring in a major grocery store chain to the area near them. The ShopRite in Milford is an awesome store with everything you could ever want to buy, lots of prepared foods to go, a large healthy foods section, etc. The city and one of the developers should try to get them to open an equivalent store on the ground floor of one these new builds with housing above.
There are lots of people in the city who aren't going to want to drive out to Whalley or out to the suburbs to get to a major chain full service grocery store with name brands and all of the departments they carry like florist, bakery, butcher, seafood counter, etc.
Downtown or nearby to it is ideal because of all the walking traffic and all the buses that go through it near the green. Plus with the two hospital campuses and biotech businesses, lots of people can pick up groceries between work and home.

That's a good idea, Heather. The Walgreen's site is for sale, I think. It used to have a grocery store a long time ago. That might be a good site for a store such as Whole Foods, Target, or Trader Joe's with 20 or 30 stories of apartments above it. The large chain supermarkets probably won't build an urban store, but Whole Foods and Target have become used to doing so.

@Heather C

Yeah, another grocery store downtown is really sorely needed. Elm City Market is certainly a start, and better than nothing.

However, I'm not sure of any urban ShopRite's–I believe it's strictly a suburban supermarket model, all with parking lots. ShopRite did buy some Fairway locations after they went bankrupt. Fairway would be good, but they failed in Stamford so they probably don't have much of an appetite to move further up the shore.

I could see an Amazon Fresh store, ALDI, Trader Joe's doing well in downtown too.

Stylo, one bit of (recent) history. Trader Joes was approached about the space that is now Elm City Market - they weren't interested. Perhaps now with growth in population downtown and nearby, they might be willing to reconsider.

@anonymous

Target would be great, but they often require their own parking garage or a large parking garage nearby, and a ton of space.

I could see a Target being developed in the Hill to Downtown area. What a great 1-2 story ground level use for the empty Church Street South lot with apartments above. Something like Target needs a big lot and pre-planning. It could even work for the Coliseum redevelopment. Look at the location in Stamford as a model. One near 95/train station would also pull in from shoreline east of New Haven.

Whole Foods is a bit easier as they do smaller footprint stores, so could easily take up the whole 1st floor of an apartment development.

Bruce Becker created the co-op at the Elm City Market site because (1) he was contractually obligated to get a supermarket, and (2) no chain was interested. He was really proud of it when I first met him, but it went bankrupt later. Big Y passed on the old Shaw's site on Whalley, and it stood empty for a long time until Stop & Shop moved in. C-Town seems to have cracked the code for urban markets, otherwise, there's not much.

" C-Town seems to have cracked the code for urban markets, otherwise, there's not much."

Many city downtowns that are less dense than New Haven have several urban markets now, usually built as part of a large apartment development in the past few years.

New Haven might have less of a market for a "new" grocery store downtown right now, mostly because there are already grocery stores downtown if you count Elm City Market and Stop and Stop at the western edge, in addition to the many smaller bodegas. Only the operators would know the answer to that. A grocery store operator (or a Target) also would have to partner with a large development firm such as Spinnaker, since they only tend to show up in very large developments of the scale of 360 State Street or larger.

Either way, there is likely room for another large grocery store as the new apartment and office buildings open up. I agree with Stylo that the most likely location is somewhere along Route 34, roughly between the Coliseum Site and the Walgreen's site. A large residential development with an integrated parking garage and lot would be the most likely development model.

There used to be a grocery store at the Walgreens site, I used to shop there, but they were small and they didn't have everything I wanted. So I used to take the bus all the way out to the Stop & Shop in the Amity Plaza.
Target isn't a full on grocery store, but they do have good deals. I could see them being very successful in the old coliseum site but Route 34 would be great also. Trader Joe's and Whole Foods won't come to the New Haven area because they are already in Milford and they don't understand that there are people who buy their products in New Haven and it's surrounding towns who drive out to them in Milford on their way to Cosco once a month, but would shop much more frequently if they were closer. But I think both of them would do really well in the city, and would draw customers from every municipality east of West Haven to the shoreline towns and north to Wallingford & Cheshire. But Stop & Shop does well on Whalley and in Amity, and I have a lot of friends and family that shop in the Hamden store because it has a better selection of items, and they would love a better selection. Aldi's is a generic off price store, so if you want brand names it's not for you. ShopRite on Route 80 and in Hamden are so-so, but the Milford one is awesome, with great prices and sales. Big Y is too expensive compared to S&S. C-Town isn't where my friends and family shop in the city. With all the new residential builds and most of them at market rate rents, multiple colleges and universities in the area, well off retirees and young professionals living downtown, there will be a lot of people with good grocery budgets who have a variety of special diets, love good food, and would like to pick up prepared foods. I don't know why you have to have only off brand bargain stores or an "urban" grocery store in a metropolitan setting. Why can't the city have a regular major chain brand name items store with everything you might want to buy? There are plenty of foodies here.

Target would be a nice option to have, or there can possibly be a new Walmart store that fits in with the future development of the Downtown Crossing.

I can honestly see Walmart, whole foods or target probably being the perfect option if the site between Church and where Temple will connect over to South Frontage becomes residential.

The Walgreens site over on York Street would be an excellent location as well to convert over to housing with there being a neighborhood supermarket store included..

The CTown on Ferry Street has the most beautiful vegetable section I've ever seen. I just mapped it and it's a 30 minute walk from the Green up grand avenue.

Unlike Target, Walmart doesn't do urban stores. Not even one in Manhattan.

A mega Walmart like the one in Wallingford with a full grocery selection would be awesome in the Route 34 corridor or another area close to downtown.
It's really frustrating how Walmart, Target, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods and other stores refuse to locate in downtown areas, and all you can get to come to the city are off price bargain stores, dollar stores and no brand cheap grocery stores. With so many market rate rental units and condo owners and new residential builds and many young people and retirees moving back to cities for the convenience, the lifestyle and ease of not having to use your car, you would think that more retailers would move back into the cities where previously they were located. When the highways were built and after WWII when suburban sprawl was happening in earnest and the white flight from the city to the suburbs was ramping up, it devastated our cities. But now with global warming mitigation needing us to contract back into dense cities with mass transit and walkability, and many retirees, millennials and Gen Z prefering to live in smaller dwellings with less stuff and less yard to care for, and less need for personal vehicles, the future of the market for consumers of non-Internet commerce is urban, not suburban.

I have wondered for quite some time why Wegmans hasn't put a footprint in New Haven.
Agreed sixty billion percent that downtown needs a proper supermarket; I am someone who speaks wistfully of Pegnataro's and Gran Central, and feels the Walgreens is ok replacement but that it shouldn't have been one or the other, which it apparently was….

@Heather

Target, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods don't avoid downtowns. There's a Target in downtown Stamford, and a few in Manhattan. There's several urban Trader Joe's and Whole Foods in NYC. And many other cities.

Response to Heather, Quinnchionn and Anonymous:

Hello Commentators,

Yes, the Walgreens site at 82-88 York Street is currently for sale and includes all, the land and the building, the current price is $15,000,000.

Inquiries may be directed to KP Grace LLC at [email protected] for the full Offering Memorandum and zoning outline.

Thank you so much for your thoughtful insights.

KP Grace

Stylo- thank you for that info. I understand from what I've read that Whole Foods and Trader Joe's decide where to locate based on income levels and the number of residents in a city. So they have rejected North Haven and New Haven. But people in New Haven County drive out to Route 1 in Milford and Orange to shop from the municipalities all around the county, and people who live in the city and points east along the shoreline and points north up to Wallingford would shop them more frequently if it was closer to New Haven, rather than all the way out in Milford.
KP Grace LLC and AARIIA Architects Alliance- thank you for the info. Hopefully a developer will read this article and the comments and buy and build a full service, name brands carrying, large grocery store or super Target or mega Walmart with a full service grocery sections there with residential units above. With its location between downtown and The Hill and close to the Hospitals, Yale University, Wooster Square, and all the new residential builds at market rate rents and condos, the retail and grocery giants will see the potential for one or more of those stores to locate in the Downtown and Route 34 corridor properties on the ground level with residential units above.

Going back to the Walgreen's site, I disagree with Anonymous that 10+ story buildings should go up throughout the city. But this would be a great location for such a development, particularly if it had a grocery and drug store on the ground floor. I think this would be a selling point for prospective residents, as seen with 360 State.