The long-awaited supermarket is part of a mixed-use retail and residential development called Springfield Avenue Marketplace
NEWARK - A ShopRite supermarket is set to open on Springfield Avenue later this month, bringing hundreds of jobs and a new option for groceries in an area of the city once called a "food desert."
Ryan Smith, a spokesman for Illinois-based Tucker Development, said the store will officially open on Sept. 30 after roughly two years of construction.
The store is the anchor of the Tucker-backed Springfield Avenue Marketplace, a $94 million mixed-use retail and housing complex that borders South Orange Avenue to the north and Jones Street to the west.
ShopRite spokeswoman Karen O'Shea said the store will employ 360 employees at the "full-service, state of the art" store, 85 of which will be full-time. Of 340 who are already hired, more than 60 percent are Newark residents.
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In addition to the usual offerings of food and other items, the 70,000-square foot location will also include other amenities, such as community meeting rooms and an on-site dietician.
"It's going to be fantastic store. It will have everything you'd expect from Shop-Rite and more," O'Shea said.
The residential portion of the project, 24 Jones, will begin filling 152 market-rate units by later October or early fall, according to Smith.
The complex also includes plans for retails and a pair of fast-food restaurants, which rankled some of its neighbors earlier this year. It is unclear when those might open, though Smith said it would be later than the Shop-Rite and residential buildings.
It will also feature another 55,000 square feet of retail space, though no other tenants had been confirmed as of earlier this week.
The ShopRite marks the latest development in something of a grocery store renaissance for Newark, which until recent years had gone decades without a new option where they could fill their cabinets.
That streak ended in 2012 with an opening of a Food Depot in the Central Ward, and is set to continue next year when a Whole Foods opens in the former Hahne's department store building on Broad Street.
Tucker has also been tapped for other local developments, including a Courtyard Marriott opened in 2012, making it the first new hotel built downtown in 40 years.
Edison-based ShopRite claims 255 family-owned locations stretching from Maryland to Connecticut. The Newark location will be owned and operated by the Greenstein family, which has owned the supermarket's location in Bloomfield for 60 years.
Dan Ivers may be reached at divers@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanIversNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
