Kosher Grocer Expanding Into Bedford-Stuyvesant

A kosher grocer is heading for Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Bingo Wholesale acquired a three-parcel development site in the Brooklyn neighborhood for $50 million, the Commercial Observer reported. The acquisition was made through the grocery store’s holding company, Norworth Holdings.

The sellers of the three sites were a pair of entities linked to the Follman family. Members of the Follman family had been feuding in the courts, according to PincusCo, which held up the sale before it closed this month.

Representatives of the grocery chain did not respond to the Observer’s request for comment.

The most expensive of the three parcels to trade hands was the 38,000-square-foot commercial condo at 18 Warsoff Place, which was sold for $25 million. The property is on the corner of Flushing Avenue.

Next door is 39 Walworth Street, which Bingo bought for $14 million. The 70,000-square-foot industrial building is sited between Flushing and Park avenues.

An additional adjacent 14,000-square-foot tax lot, which doesn’t have an address attached, was sold for $11 million. There were also 173,000 square feet of air rights involved in the transaction.

Bingo boasts four locations, all serving the Orthodox Jewish communities of the tri-state area. Locations are already up and running in Brooklyn, Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood, Monsey and Lakewood, New Jersey. It’s unclear when the Bedford-Stuyvesant location could open.

The planned grocery store is not far from where a group of property owners aim to build 560 apartments and three yeshivas to meet growing demand.

The landlords proposed transforming a three-block stretch of Park Avenue, from Bedford Avenue to Sanford Street, into six apartment buildings and the religious schools. They need the land, which straddles Park Avenue, rezoned from manufacturing to residential.

Applicants include those affiliated with United Talmudic Academy, Yeshiva Bnos Ahavas Israel, Hatzolah of Williamsburg and Beth Chana School.

— Holden Walter-Warner