Wegmans updates planned store openings in Pennsylvania, New York

Wegmans Food Markets has set an opening date for its 19th Pennsylvania store and updated the opening time frame for its first location in metropolitan New York’s Long Island.

Announced in 2019, the 88,000-square-foot store in Yardley, Pennsylvania, is slated to open its doors on March 20, 2024, Rochester, New York-based Wegmans said. The location will be the supermarket chain’s second store in Bucks County. The company had kicked off hiring for the new store back in October.

Located at 925 Vansant Dr. in Yardley, the new store will feature Wegmans’ typical breadth of fresh food offerings, including an expansive produce department with hundreds of fruits and vegetables; full-service seafood, meat, bakery and deli departments; plus an enhanced cheese assortment, with a range of specialty items.

Customers also will find another Wegmans trademark: a big array of restaurant foods, such as fresh sushi, hot pizza, chef-made salads, and made-to-order and grab-and-go sandwiches. The store also will offer approximately 1,200 wines and 500 varieties of domestic, craft and imported beer and hard cider.

Wegmans noted that the Yardley location will employ more than 400 people in full- and part-time positions, with most employees hired locally and being new to the company. The store is situated on the Prickett Preserve development, which encompasses commercial, residential and retail sites.

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In New York, Wegmans on Tuesday confirmed published reports that its first Long Island store—in the eastern Suffolk County community of Lake Grove—won’t open until early 2025 because of delays in permit approvals. Reports had said Wegmans previously anticipated a 2024 opening for the store.

“After receiving all of our permitting approvals, which took longer than expected, we began the demolition of the existing building in early November. We are currently evaluating the new food market construction schedule to determine an opening date, but we anticipate it will be early 2025,” Mandee Puleo, senior public relations coordinator at Wegmans, said Tuesday in an email to Winsight Grocery Business.

The 100,000-square-foot Lake Grove store will mark Wegmans’ third metro New York location, after store openings in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The grocer entered New York City in October 2019 with the opening of a 74,000-square-foot store at the Navy Yard development in the borough of Brooklyn. That was followed by the opening of the chain’s first Manhattan supermarket this past October. The 87,500-square-foot, two-level store occupies space on the street and lower levels of the historic Wannamaker department store building at 770 Broadway in the Astor Place neighborhood of the city’s East Village.

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Overall, Wegmans operates 110 stores in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Delaware and the District of Columbia. Other future store locations include Rockville, Maryland; Norwalk, Connecticut; and Holly Springs, North Carolina, according to Wegmans. The Holly Springs store would be the chain’s southernmost location, and the Norwalk location would be the grocer’s first in Connecticut.