COMMUNITY NEWS

Stew Leonard’s coming to E. Meadow

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East Meadow will become home to Long Island’s second Stew Leonard’s, a Connecticut-based farm-fresh food grocer, in 2017.

The family-owned and operated store was founded as a dairy shop in 1969 in Norwalk, Conn., and has grown to include four other locations, in Danbury and Newington, Conn., and Farmingdale and Yonkers, N.Y. The sixth Stew Leonard’s will open in what is now known as the East Meadow Mall, near the intersection of Front Street and East Meadow Avenue. The shopping center formerly housed a Pathmark, which closed in 2013.

The store will occupy the vacant 70,000-square-foot space at 1897 Front St. The mall, owned by the Serota Organization, will be renovated and renamed Stew Leonard’s Marketplace in the coming year, with construction scheduled to begin this summer.

“We are thrilled to welcome Stew Leonard’s as our newest tenant,” Geoff and Charles Serota, the company’s owners, said in a joint statement. “The East Meadow Mall will begin renovations, including a de-malling process, to create an open, first-class and exceptionally unique retail space for our shoppers.”

According to a Stew Leonard’s press release, the store should open in mid-2017.

Joseph Parisi, president of the Council of East Meadow Community Organizations, said that civic leaders and residents seem happy that the vacant space is being filled. “I think people are looking forward to the revitalization of that location,” he said. “The community has wanted to see something done there, and a Stew Leonard’s coming in is a good thing for East Meadow.”

Last month, Stew Leonard’s opened a 60,000-square-foot store in Farmingdale’s Airport Plaza, on Route 110. “Our family is very excited,” Stew Leonard Jr., the company’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “We were thrilled with our store opening in Farmingdale, and it encouraged us to expand on Long Island. We’ve had a warm reception from the town officials.”

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