Whole Foods to open next week as Huntington Shopping Center’s $75M revamp nears finish

Whole Foods Market will open its seventh supermarket on Long Island next week as part of a $75 million revamp of the Huntington Shopping Center aimed at making it more upscale.

Set to open Wednesday, the 43,916-square-foot supermarket is the largest anchor in the Huntington Shopping Center, which is at 350 Walt Whitman Rd., Huntington Station.

“Historically, Long Island has been a very strong market for us, and the community here has really embraced us from the moment we opened our doors,” Nicole Davia, senior vice president of operations for Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods, said in a statement.

Whole Foods opened its first Long Island store, in Manhasset, in 1996. But the retailer has been trying to gain more of a foothold in the area in recent years, with stores opening in Commack in 2019, Uniondale in 2020 and Massapequa in 2021.

The natural and organic food grocer also plans to open a store in 2025 at the former Sun Vet Mall, which was renamed The Shops at SunVet last year, as part of the Holbrook property’s redevelopment as an open-air shopping center.

Combined, six other Whole Foods stores and a sister store, Amazon Fresh, rank eighth among all supermarkets on Long Island, where they account for 4.27% of the market share, according to a June report from Food Trade News, a Columbia, Maryland-based publication. Traditional supermarket chain Stop & Shop ranks first, with 50 stores accounting for 31.60% of the market share.

But discount grocers, such as Lidl and Aldi, are growing on Long Island — and nationwide — as consumers increasingly seek bargains to try to offset higher food prices.

Because Whole Foods is a specialty grocer that attracts higher-income earners, has fewer stores and expands more slowly than major discount and traditional grocers, it still performs reasonably well, said Dan Romanoff, a senior equity research analyst at Morningstar Research Services, a financial services firm in Chicago.

“I wouldn’t say they are immune, but they are definitely more insulated from inflationary pressures,” he said.

Owned by Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc., Whole Foods has 537 stores in North America and the United Kingdom, including 516 in the United States.

The Whole Foods in Huntington Station will have full-service meat, seafood and bakery departments; a prepared-food department; and a “specialty department dedicated to celebrating cheesemakers and artisan producers, including 20 local suppliers,” the retailer said.

So far, the Huntington Station store has a staff of 135 workers, 65% of whom were hired externally, while the rest transferred from other Whole Foods stores, the retailer said.

Exits create opportunities

Built in 1962, Huntington Shopping Center had lost several large stores over the past several years, including Bed Bath & Beyond in 2018, Modell’s Sporting Goods in 2020 and Nordstrom Rack in 2021.

Those exits created an opportunity to transform the shopping center into a more upscale site starting in 2022, according to the property’s owner, Federal Realty Investment Trust in North Bethesda, Maryland.

Most of the tenants are new at the 21-acre shopping center, which is 94% leased.

“As our redevelopment of Huntington Shopping Center nears completion, we’re excited to add several local brands to our merchandising mix,” Chris Fleming, vice president of asset management at Federal Realty, said in a statement. “Alongside Whole Foods, The Container Store and REI, these small shops will help draw and maintain new and repeat customers for years to come.”

The redevelopment included updating facades, reconstructing parking lots and adding new landscaping, walkways and outdoor seating areas.

The project reconfigured the shopping center, reducing the retail space by 25% to 210,000 square feet, though two new outparcels were added, Federal Realty said.

Tenants that have opened since August are The Container Store; European Wax Center; outdoor goods retailer REI; apparel stores J.Crew Factory and Clothes Horse; and eateries Just Salad, Burger Village and Paris Baguette.

Incoming tenants will include Pacfe Nails, a Häagen-Dazs ice cream shop and Street to Table, a restaurant and bar, which will open by fall.

Also, high-end kitchenware store Williams Sonoma will open this year.