BY GABE HERMAN | A supermarket is set to fill the vacant space at the northeast corner of Sixth Ave. and Waverly Place, according to an announcement by owner Lee & Associates, a Brooklyn-based gourmet grocer.
The store, at 378 Sixth Ave., will be called Greenwich Gourmet Market, and is expected to open in June of next year. The retail space has sat empty for the past three years after its most recent tenant, Duane Reade, vacated it.
The lease is for 8,200 square feet, and will be divided between 4,000 square feet on the ground floor and 4,200 square feet on the lower level. The lease is for 21 years. Asking rent was $200 per square foot, according to Lee & Associates.
“Located right off Washington Square Park and in close proximity to the many residents of the Village, Greenwich Gourmet Market couldn’t be better positioned to succeed,” said Mark Kapnick, executive vice president and Principal at Lee & Associates. “The store will offer a wide variety of gourmet prepared foods, in addition to more traditional grocery items.”
The company currently owns four stores in Brooklyn, each with a different name, including Tashkent Supermarket in Brighton Beach. The company said it has future plans to expand into underserved residential areas in Manhattan, as well.
This area of the Village has been dealing with a high retail vacancy rate. On the same block, at Sixth Ave. and Eighth St., the former Barnes & Noble bookstore has been vacant five-plus years. But this paper recently reported the Blue Note jazz club may want to open a live-music venue there. However, the Blue Note has repeatedly “laid over” going before Community Board 2’s monthly State Liquor Authority Committee meeting on its application for a liquor license for the space.
