The End Is Near: Clinton Hill Key Food Will Close On Friday Or Saturday, July 10-11

The death knell is near, folks: the Key Food at 325 Lafayette Avenue is closing as of next week in order to allow for construction to begin on the planned eight-story, 113-unit, mixed-income residential building with a 15,000-square-foot ground floor retail space.

The store’s last day will be either next Friday, July 10 or “hopefully, Saturday,” a female employee told us. A going-out-of-business sale is already underway, with items marked at 25 percent off, with Manager Sales items getting an additional 25 percent off. Next week will see 50 percent off remaining items.

The supermarket site, surrounded by multiple NYCHA public housing and other housing complexes — many of which house senior citizens with limited mobility — was sold in February to developer Slate Property Group, whose principal, David Schwartz, has told residents that a replacement grocery store may be in the works, but is not guaranteed.

The managers of the Key Food are reportedly still in negotiations with Slate for a new contract, to hopefully begin in three years, after construction is complete on the housing tower.

As noted by New York YIMBY, “the project will be an 80/20 building, with 20 percent the apartment set aside to be rented at below-market rates.”

The apartments would be spread over 80,000 square feet of space, for an average unit size of just a bit over 700 square feet – surely rentals, perhaps likely to be rented by some students at the nearby Pratt Institute. Most of the residential floors above ground level will have 19 apartments each, except the second (13 units) and eighth (12 units) floors.

New Lucky Laundromat next door at 323 Lafayette Avenue is also closing, although their owners have declined to speak with the press about the change.

There are a limited number of grocery stores and supermarkets in the immediate area, but here are five within walking distance. Since that list was made, though, the former Associated Supermarket at 490 Myrtle Avenue (between Hall and Ryerson) announced that they will soon be reopening as a Key Food later this summer.

In addition, there are smaller markets such as Mr. Melon (975 Fulton Street, between Washington Avenue and Cambridge Place), Mr. Coco (414 Myrtle Avenue, between Vanderbilt and Clinton Avenues), and the Greene Hill Food Co-op (18 Putnam Avenue).