Whitestone residents will have to wait a while longer for a long-anticipated supermarket as the chain faces further delays, a spokesperson told QNS.
North Shore Farms’ newest location at Whitestone Plaza will open “no later than the second week of October,” according to spokesman George Tsiatis, though the company hopes to be operational sooner. The supermarket chain, after QNS made an inquiry in March, indicated that a June opening was in the works.
Despite the delay, the company still “is committed to the space and the neighborhood,” Tsiatis stressed, and North Shore Farms signage will go up at the location during the second week of July.
“We hoped to have already been open, but we needed to do much more extensive work on the space than had been anticipated and ran into some delays that were beyond our control,” the spokesman said. “We are continuing to work diligently on the space every day to prepare it for opening.”
The deal with North Shore Farms was first announced in October 2016 after months of speculation in the community and the storefront was first slated for a summer 2017 opening. The chain will occupy 23,818 square feet at the mall on 153rd Street and 10th Avenue and feature locally sourced foods at affordable prices.
After Waldbaum’s closure at the Whitestone site in November 2015, locals were left without a neighborhood supermarket. Shortly before North Shore Farms announced its lease agreement in 2016, residents drafted a petition for a new supermarket and delivered it to the Feil Organization, owner of the shopping center.
