Residents of Spuyten Duyvil will soon regain access to a neighborhood supermarket and pharmacy after months of advocacy efforts to bring essential services back to the Knolls Crescent shopping center.<\/p>\n
Construction is underway to convert the former Rite Aid location into a Fine Fare supermarket after the space was secured through a 20-year lease. The grocery store is expected to open in September.<\/p>\n
The owner of Ben’s Market purchased the former Rite Aid space and plans to relocate grocery operations there. The current Ben’s Market location will then be transformed into a pharmacy, with plans to open next year.<\/p>\n
Community advocates Karen Kawaguchi and Stephanie Coggins helped lead efforts to ensure the retail space continued serving neighborhood needs after Rite Aid closed nearly a year ago.<\/p>\n
Residents say the return of a pharmacy is especially important for the area’s large senior population, many of whom have struggled to access prescription services since the closure.<\/p>\n
“The pharmacist, which we are thrilled to learn is Ali Al-Bashir, who was the pharmacist over at Rite Aid, is coming back,” Kawaguchi said. “People in the community know him. They love him. They respect him.”<\/p>\n
While residents are welcoming the return of essential services, they say the shopping center still faces challenges. Five of the center’s 16 storefronts remain vacant.<\/p>\n
Coggins said the center has lost some of the activity it once had when more businesses were operating.<\/p>\n
“The Knolls Crescent Shopping Center has been feeling a little bit abandoned,” Coggins said. “I used to come just about every single day, and now I come maybe a couple times a week just because I need to pick things up.”<\/p>\n
Kawaguchi and Coggins are now surveying residents about what types of businesses they would like to see fill the remaining vacant storefronts. Among the most requested additions is a coffee shop, which residents say would provide a gathering place for neighbors.<\/p>\n
The advocates have also begun reaching out to business owners in other commercial districts, hoping to attract new tenants and revitalize the shopping center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents of Spuyten Duyvil will soon regain access to a neighborhood supermarket and pharmacy after months of advocacy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-278331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278331","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=278331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}