Fairway Market confirms Kips Bay plans | Bedford NY Real Estate

Fairway Market made it official: It is coming to midtown. The 10-unit chain recently signed on for 42,000 square feet at Kips Bay Plaza, a shopping center located on Second Avenue and East 30th Street. The store, where construction is already underway, will open in November, around Thanksgiving.

Crain’s New York Business first reported that the company was in discussions for the site in April.

This will be the first midtown location for Fairway, a grocer founded in the 1930s as a fruit and vegetable store. Since private equity firm Sterling Investment Partners acquired a majority stake in the company five years ago, Fairway has been expanding rapidly, recently opening outposts on the Upper East Side and in Douglaston, Queens. The company employs about 3,900 people.

“There are no good food stores [in the neighborhood],” said Howie Glickberg, vice chairman of development at Fairway, noting that the chain has done well on the Upper East and Upper West sides. “We think we’ll do very well [in Kips Bay].”

In Kips Bay, Fairway replaces an Office Depot and a Crunch Gym. Rite Aid and Loew’s Multiplex Cinema are already at the complex. The grocer, which was represented in negotiations by Robert Futterman and Gary Alterman of Robert K. Futterman & Associates, has leased about 2,000 square feet of ground-floor space, while the remaining 40,000 square feet will be in the basement. Whole Foods had reportedly been looking at the space as well.

Kips Bay will be Fairway’s third Manhattan location, and will follow an August opening of a site in Westbury, N.Y. A lease was just signed for Rockland County as well, and Mr. Glickberg noted that the chain is still scouting Manhattan for additional outposts.

The Kips Bay complex also houses a former 21,300-square-foot Borders bookstore at its northern end. Staples has reportedly signed on for the space.