Mayor Zohran Mamdani says New York City is gearing up to open its first batch of city-owned grocery stores.
Five city-owned supermarkets are currently being mapped out for each of the five boroughs in the Big Apple, Mamdani announced Sunday evening at a Queens rally marking his first 100 days in office.
“At our stores, eggs will be cheaper. Bread will be cheaper. Grocery shopping will no longer be an unsolvable equation,” said Mamdani.
The mayor’s team has already selected its first location: La Marqueta in East Harlem. The site is already owned by New York City, he said.
What do we know about the stores?
The first NYC-owned grocery store will be open by the end of 2027, Mamdani has said. Opening stores owned by the city was one of the mayor’s signature campaign pledges.
La Marqueta is the first site selected to be one of the city’s stores, but it’s unlikely to be the first one open — the city still needs to build out the store. Construction operations are estimated to cost $30 million.
Mamdani plans to find a store in an existing building to get up and running by next year. All five would be open by the end of his first term in 2029.
The grocery stores would be run by a third-party operator selected by the city.
In addition, the mayor on Sunday announced plans to expand the city’s covered trash bin program — “Say goodbye to black bags and say hello to the bins,” he said, vowing to spread the initiative citywide by the end of 2031.
And he reiterated his campaign promise to make buses faster and free of cost, saying he would move to speed up bus services along some routes. It remains unclear how he would make good on eliminating bus fares.
Mamdani, 34, took office in January after a campaign centered on making New York City a more affordable place to live, centering his agenda on refocusing the vast power of government toward helping the city’s struggling working class.