Bay Ridge is finally getting its Trader Joe\u2019s.<\/p>\n
The popular grocery chain has been announced as the national specialty grocery retailer<\/a> coming to Century Marketplace, the long-awaited redevelopment of the former Century 21 department store on 86th Street, according to a video posted Sunday by area Council Member Kayla Santosuosso.<\/p>\n The announcement marks a major development in a years-long saga over what would become of the shuttered department store \u2014 and delivers news that Bay Ridge residents have been hoping for since Century 21 closed in 2020.<\/p>\n The video, posted by Santosuosso, confirms that Trader Joe\u2019s is coming to the neighborhood. No opening date has been announced.<\/p>\n Brooklyn Paper has followed the former Century 21 site\u2019s uncertain future through multiple proposed redevelopments, ownership changes and, most recently, plans for a new retail complex anchored by a national grocery chain<\/a> \u2014 now revealed as Trader Joe\u2019s.<\/p>\n The property was sold for $47.5 million in 2025 to MCB Real Estate and Osiris Ventures, which announced plans to transform the site into Century Marketplace, a roughly 95,000-square-foot retail development. The project is intended to bring new shopping and food options to the busy 86th Street corridor.<\/p>\n In August 2025, the developers told Brooklyn Paper they were working to bring a national grocer to the development, with plans for new retail spaces and a two-story building featuring an interior atrium facing 86th Street.<\/p>\n The announcement followed years of uncertainty after earlier redevelopment proposals for the former department store were abandoned. The Gindi family, which founded Century 21 at the Bay Ridge location in 1961, had previously floated plans for a sprawling retail destination before those plans were scrapped in 2024.<\/p>\n The new ownership\u2019s plans represented a fresh start for the property, which had remained vacant since Century 21 closed amid the retailer\u2019s 2020 bankruptcy.<\/p>\n