Fairway to break ground on UES location

alternate text
240 East 86th Street

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

Grocery chain Fairway Market will break ground Wednesday at 240 East 86th Street, on a 45,000-square-foot store between Second and Third avenues, formerly home to a Barnes & Noble and slated to open in 2011, at the base of luxury apartment building the Ventura. The new Upper East Side location is part of a plan by Fairway’s fourth-generation owners to double the number of stores from six in the next several years, including opening locations in Stamford, Conn., next month and Douglaston, Queens, in fall 2011, according to the Wall Street Journal. “We’re on the fast track to growth right now,” said Howie Glickberg, whose grandfather Nathan founded the original Upper West Side store in the 1930s. “We look to open a store every six months.” Fairway’s six stores have close to 3,500 employees and generate nearly $600 million in annual revenue. Sterling Investment Partners of Westport, Conn., a $1 billion private-equity firm, acquired a controlling interest in Fairway in 2007. The firm’s initial $150 million investment allowed Fairway to open a new branch in Pelham Manor, N.Y., and sign leases for three upcoming locations. [WSJ]