Walmart ‘SuperCenter’ slated for Yaphank’s Boulevard development

Retail giant Walmart plans to open a “SuperCenter” — a large store containing a supermarket — on a 322-acre development on the onetime Parr Meadows horse racing track in Yaphank, Newsday reported. Dubbed the Boulevard, the development spearheaded by Yonkers-based AVR Realty will also have luxury homes, an assisted-living facility and a hotel. Rose-Breslin Associates, the property’s owner, has already secured economic incentives for the project and now plans to submit a site plan for the 292,568-square-foot retail component to the development for which Walmart will be the anchor tenant. The 197,000-square-foot Walmart would be open 24 hours a day and have online grocery pickup, a pharmacy and an auto care center. Walmart only has 4.94 percent of the grocery market share on Long Island, according to Newsday, lagging behind local leader Stop & Shop, which has 51 stores and 21.02 percent of the market. (Newsday noted those numbers were even before Stop & Shop bought Bethpage-based King Kullen in January.) Walmart, however, is in the process of increasing the size of its Farmingdale location by 40 percent, to 219,450 square feet. As for the Boulevard, which has its roots in a decades-old project nicknamed “Willy World” proposed by Garden City-based developer Wilbur Breslin, it began construction in 2015. When finished, the development will have 935 apartments, condos and townhouses; a 118-bed assisted living facility called Chelsea Senior Living; and a 146-room Home2 Suites by Hilton. [Newsday]