Riverdale cookie factory site to get shopping center, BJ’s Wholesale Club

Riverdale’s Stella D’oro cookie factory will be sold to developers Metropolitan Realty Associates and Angelo, Gordon & Co. to build a shopping center, the Wall Street Journal reported. The new 162,000-square-foot center will most likely be anchored by a BJ’s Wholesale Club, sources said.

The bakery is being sold by Brynwood Partners, a private equity fund based in Greenwich, Conn., which purchased Stella D’oro in 2006 in a futile effort to turn the manufacturer around. The bakery’s operations ended about two years ago, putting about 150 employees out of work.

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Terms of the sale were not immediately available but the facility was listed in the low $20 million range, the Journal said.

The new owners are hoping to finish construction of the shopping center in time for a 2013 opening. Angelo, Gordon’s other investments have included Manhattan’s Chelsea Market and the Helmsley Carlton House. [WSJ]