He’s selling a “basket of goods.”
Mayor Zohran Mamdani admitted Tuesday that the promised lower prices at his city-owned grocery stores will only be guaranteed for a core set of everyday staples.
Items in those so-called baskets of goods have yet to be decided, but likely include essentials such as bread, milk and eggs, officials said.
Beyond those essentials, the stores will also sell other foodstuffs and items. Officials said they’ll aim to make those items low-cost as well, but may not always be able to achieve the perpetual discount.
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“When it comes to the products that we will be selling at the city-run grocery stores, there will be an essential basket of goods that will be guaranteed a cheaper price, and cheaper than what they’re being sold at currently,” Mamdani said during a news conference at La Marqueta in Harlem.
The already city-owned La Marqueta was the first location revealed to host Mamdani’s socialist pet grocery project, but he said Tuesday the actual store – which carries a whopping $30 million expected price tag – won’t open until 2029.
Other yet-to-be-decided municipal grocery stores will open before then, with the first expected to greet shoppers in late 2027, officials said.
“This store will be open in 2029,” Mamdani said. “The reason that we’re announcing it first is because, unlike other stores, this will be built from the ground up.”
The store at La Marqueta is planned to be a 9,000-square-foot market erected on a nearby vacant lot, officials said.
The project will cost roughly half the $70 million Mamdani’s administration expects to spend to get the city-owned grocery stores off the ground in all five boroughs by the end of his first term.
The funding still requires approval from the City Council.
Grocery executives were gobsmacked by the La Marqueta project’s $30 million price tag, with some pointing out a typical, 15,000-square-foot store without elevators or escalators costs under $10 million to build.
And at least two existing properties – one with 33,000 square feet of retail space, the other with 15,000 square feet – are currently up for sale down the block from La Marqueta for roughly $15 million and $7 million, listings show.
Mamdani pitched the city-owned stores starting during his mayoral campaign as an affordability measure that’ll tackle the often-volatile price of groceries.
City Hall officials plan to tap a private operator to manage the stores’ daily operations.
“What it’s going to allow people to do is it’s going to allow them to budget, and it’s going to allow it to feel the predictability of price,” Mamdani said.
The price of a “core basket of goods” – which Mamdani and City Hall officials didn’t specify – will be fixed, the mayor said.
Officials didn’t respond to The Post’s requests for comment on what exactly the goods will be – although Julie Su, the deputy mayor for economic justice, vaguely promised the city will subsidize the “things that families actually need every week.”
“And we will listen to the community, so the food on the shelves will reflect what people in this neighborhood eat,” she added during Mamdani’s news conference.
Jeanny Pak, the interim president for the city’s Economic Development Corporation, said the core basket will be fresh, everyday grocery items with a fixed discount.
“It’s going to be fixed throughout the five stores,” she said.
The EDC already oversees six public retail markets across the city, including La Marqueta – which carries a rich, symbolically resonant history for a public service-focused socialist such as Mamdani.
Former Mayor Fiorella La Guardia opened the establishment in 1936 as the Park Avenue Retail Market to put pushcart vendors under one roof and provide fresh food for working-class New Yorkers.
