International supermarket Aldi is one step closer to coming to Great Neck Plaza and filling a grocery hole on the peninsula that residents have been asking for four years.
The Village of Great Neck Plaza Board of Trustees approved the conditional-use permit on Wednesday, March 19 for the supermarket to open in The Gardens shopping center. The business must have a permit to operate in the village.
“Welcome to Great Neck Plaza,” Mayor Ted Rosen said. “We are very happy that you are coming in.”
Bruno Lourenco, Aldi’s director of real estate, described Aldi as a “limited assortment grocery store” that sells self-labeled products from pantry staples to frozen foods, pre-packaged meats, dairy, eggs and fresh produce. He said the store offers discounted and affordable products without compromising their quality.
“We sell high-quality products at a low price,” Lourenco said.
The store would also sell beer under the Aldi private label, but no wine nor liquor as prohibited under state law.
The store would also provide e-commerce and curbside pick-up services, allowing individuals to shop for their groceries online and have an employee bring them to their car. Lourenco said the lot would have designated parking spots for curbside pick-up shoppers.
The Aldi would be open seven days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., with closures on certain holidays.
Aldi would occupy the 20,000-square-foot store, with the sales floor encompassing about 12,500 square feet.
The supermarket anticipates opening in summer 2026 and attributes the more than year-long wait to construction at the store.
Lourenco said Aldi would invest about $4 million in renovating the store, and Kimco Reality, the landlord, would also invest more in upgrades to the property.
Kimco’s upgrades include renovations to the sound attenuation wall that runs along the back of the store on Brompton Road where residential homes are located.
“When it’s done, it will look brand new, revitalize the shopping center and I think provide the community something that I think has been missing for a while,” Lourenco said.
Lourenco said Aldi has been expanding into Long Island since 2020, with much success at its multiple locations. Stores are located in Carle Place, Valley Stream, and Hempstead, with another store under construction in Bethpage.
‘It’s been a great market for us,” Lourenco said. “I think we’ve provided a benefit to the communities.”
Great Neck Plaza resident Francis D’Emilio said that while she is pleased that a supermarket is coming to the peninsula, she is disappointed that a full-service grocery store is not what is arriving and that it took so long for it to be brought in.
“I think it’s dismaying that it took five and a half years to get a supermarket here,” D’Emilio said.
Great Neck Plaza Trustee Michael DeLuccia said the village board had contacted numerous grocery stores over the years, yet nothing came to fruition.
“This is something that we’ve taken extremely seriously,” DeLuccia said. “We live in the village, we all shop, we all eat and we’re pleased that we are getting a supermarket.”
North Hempstead Council Member Christine Liu said she also devoted herself to sourcing a new supermarket. Liu said that when she campaigned in 2023, she found the lack of a supermarket to be one of the greatest issues residents expressed in Great Neck.
To address this issue, Liu said she also contacted numerous grocery stores, and it was Lourenco who actually picked up the phone and worked with her to bring this project to fruition.
Great Neck Estates resident Garrett Twitchell, who described himself as a fan of the Aldi grocery stores, expressed his support for Aldi coming to the peninsula.
“For someone like me who gets overwhelmed by too many choices, it’s really, really helpful,” Twitchell said. “…You go into Best Market and there’s five different types of ketchup, do you need five choices of ketchup or one good choice of ketchup? That’s kind of how I take it.”
Twitchell said he can do 90% of his grocery shopping at Aldi, and the remainder can be supplemented with local specialty grocery stores. But the store will also have specialty seasonal items, Twitchell said, including holiday German imports.
While there are multiple specialty and ethnic grocery stores on the peninsula, a supermarket has been missing since the prior Best Market closed in early 2021.
While the board granted their permit, an exception for deliveries had to be made.
Lourenco said that all of its stories receive their food deliveries overnight, yet the Village of Great Neck Plaza prohibits deliveries after 6 p.m. and until before 8 a.m.
Rosen said the village would consider amending the village law to permit deliveries at the Aldi, and potentially at other businesses, until 10 p.m.
Lourenco said for the first time, Aldi will have to coordinate delivering groceries from their Connecticut warehouse during the day.
To work through this change, he requested the village permit them to accept deliveries from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. so drivers could have some flexibility. While the larger time window would help avoid delivery issues, Lourenco said the intent is to have deliveries come in shortly after 8 a.m. and again around noon.
Lourenco said the delivery trucks would only be docked at the store for a maximum of one hour and the truck would not be idling. Deliveries would be one truck at a time, with about two trucks arriving daily.
