Mayor Mamdani unveiled new details about how his planned city-run grocery stores in each borough would work on Tuesday, saying the stores will offer discounted prices for an “essential basket of goods” like bread, eggs and produce.
Mamdani said his administration is still working out the calculation for exactly how much cheaper the items are going to be.
“Grocery shopping will no longer be an unsolvable equation, and workers will be treated with dignity,” Mamdani said at a press conference Tuesday. He announced the location of the Manhattan store during a speech marking his first 100 days in office on Sunday.
The city will start procurement for the East Harlem store this summer, he said, though it won’t be opened until 2029. A private operator will run the store.
“I can’t give you an exact example of the cost of a cucumber in our essential basket,” Mamdani said. “But what I can tell you is that when New Yorkers come to city-run grocery stores, they will see a clear price differential when it comes to those essentials.
The first city-run grocery store is expected to open in 2027, Mamdani said, at a yet-to-be-chosen location next year.
The La Marqueta location is slated to cost $30 million, covering the ground-up construction of a new brick-and-mortar store, the mayor said, adding that it will be significantly cheaper to get the other locations going, as they are going to occupy existing spaces. The administration says it does not yet have a figure for annual operating costs
On the campaign trail, Mamdani said the five grocery stores would cost $60 million total. That budget appears to have notched upward as the city’s earmarked $70 million for the upcoming fiscal year for the stores.
A spokesperson for the mayor said that budgeted amount covers all capital costs for getting the stores ready to open — so the costs estimates increased modestly from the campaign trail. That number does not include operating costs.
