{"id":197210,"date":"2026-04-14T19:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T19:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/197210\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T19:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T19:20:07","slug":"how-mamdanis-nyc-owned-grocery-stores-will-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/197210\/","title":{"rendered":"How Mamdani’s NYC-owned grocery stores will work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Government-owned grocery stores are coming to New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Tuesday, with the first location to debut in 2027 and the first publicized location, East Harlem, to open in 2029.\u00a0Opening stores in each of the five boroughs \u2014 profit-free, with cheaper prices for essentials than market-rate stores \u2014 was a key plank<\/a> of Mamdani\u2019s insurgent campaign for mayor. The program will cost $70 million in capital funds, he said. Prices will be subsidized.<\/p>\n

“New York City, it is time for a grand experiment once again,” Mamdani said Tuesday morning.<\/a><\/p>\n

Much remains unanswered about the program, but here’s some of what we do know:<\/p>\n

Why does Mamdani think government-owned grocery stores are necessary?<\/p>\n

The mayor says that certain neighborhoods are food deserts, meaning that options for finding healthy food are limited, while\u00a0grocery prices everywhere have soared everywhere in recent years.<\/p>\n

“Bread will be cheaper. Eggs will be cheaper. Grocery\u00a0shopping will no longer be an unsolvable equation,” Mamdani said.<\/p>\n

How much of a discount will the stores offer?<\/p>\n

Whichever operator is selected by the city to run the grocery stores\u00a0will be required by contract to pass the savings to shoppers \u201con a core basket of everyday staples,” the mayor said on Tuesday. Pressed on how much the discount would be, the mayor\u00a0said he did not yet know. He also did not say what those staples would be and it was not immediately clear how the city would select the operator.<\/p>\n

Where will the stores be located and when will they open?<\/p>\n

Each borough will have a government-owned grocery store. The first one will open in 2027, Mamdani said. The mayor\u00a0said that each borough will have a store by the end of his first term in 2029.<\/p>\n

What did Mamdani announce Tuesday?<\/p>\n

He unveiled details for the Manhattan site \u2014 at a city-owned lot near the\u00a0La Marqueta<\/a>\u00a0market\u00a0at\u00a01590 Park Ave. in\u00a0East Harlem. The lot is at East 117th Street and Park Avenue.\u00a0A\u00a09,000-square-foot store will be built, to open in 2029.\u00a0The site\u2019s history dates to 1936, when then-Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia\u00a0opened what was\u00a0called the Park Avenue Retail Market to consolidate pushcart vendors under one roof. Mamdani says the cost to build near La Marqueta will cost $30 million. That will be the Manhattan store.<\/p>\n

What about the impact to existing grocery stores, food markets and bodegas?<\/p>\n

Grocery stores have complained that Mamdani\u2019s program will offer\u00a0unfair competition and harm their businesses. Newsday asked Mamdani about this topic.\u00a0He wouldn\u2019t provide specifics, or say whether the city has done any analysis, but said generally: \u201cWe are confident that this is going to be a critical part of not just the business ecosystem, but also the city\u2019s.\u201d Mamdani has noted that the city already subsidizes groceries, indirectly at least, through various tax breaks and welfare programs that benefit private grocers.<\/p>\n

\"Matthew<\/p>\n

\n\tMatthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Government-owned grocery stores are coming to New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Tuesday, with the first location…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[288,1445,9,24,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-197210","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-mamdani","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-ny","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-nyc-headlines","15":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}