By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BAY RIDGE – Bay Ridge shoppers, who lost a Key Food in June, could be singing “food, glorious food� as they await a new Key Food supermarket, a Bay Ridge Food Co-op and a city Greenmarket. But there will soon be one less Starbucks in Bay Ridge.

Two of these items on the food shoppers’ list were discussed at the Community Board 10 meeting at the Shore Hill Community Room. The proposed Bay Ridge Food Co-op, with much initial fanfare and excitement, is moving along.

More long-range planning is needed with public input, said David Marangio, a co-op spokesperson at the meeting, informing the board that the group “is doing a lot of outreach in a variety of forms for this healthy and affordable option.� About 100 people have become involved, he said, in the three months since the initial meeting.

The fledging co-op plans two informational and outreach tables, with face-painting for children, at the Third Avenue Festival on Sunday, Sept. 28, one in the ‘70s and the other in the ‘90s street blocks. The group meets at the Bay Ridge Public Library, on Ridge Boulevard at 73rd Street, the first and third Tuesdays of the month at 6:30 p.m. through October.

Key Food and Walgreens

After Councilman Vincent Gentile’s report on various issues, Board 10 member Helen Sokoloski asked him about the status of the Walgreens moving into the old Key Food site on Third Avenue at 95th Street. She also asked him if it is true that Fairway Markets was also looking to move into Bay Ridge, at the site of the current Staples on Fifth Avenue at 94th Street.

“I was told that the interior renovation at the old Key Food store will begin in January and finished by June. They’re probably looking to a June 2009 opening,� Gentile said of Walgreens’ plans. The store is now stripped empty and lit up inside night and day.

State Sen. Marty Golden established a community task force which will submit a “wish list� of necessary food items beyond what the pharmacy retail superstore Walgreens’ “Food Mart� section provides to help make up for the loss of Key Food.

The nearest supermarket is Bay Ridge’s largest and the only one with a parking lot, the Foodtown on Third Avenue between 91st and 92nd streets. There are Associated and Food City supermarkets up north on the avenue. Sokoloski also asked when the now overcrowded Foodtown would be expanded.

“Foodtown is still working things out with the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals for its planned 9,000-square-foot expansion. There is a zoning issue involved,� Gentile said. Foodtown owners had purchased the former Loft and Short Ribs restaurant building at the corner of Third Avenue and 91st Street.

As for rumors that were circulating on the Bay Ridge gossip circuit about a Fairway Market or Grand Union seeking to move into the Staples superstore, Gentile squashed the talk. “I called Staples and it’s not going to happen,� said a board member, with Gentile confirming that. A 24-hour Grand Union occupied the site until Staples moved in during the 1990s.

The new Key Food for northern Bay Ridge on Bay Ridge Avenue (69th Street) at the site of a vacant home furnishings store west of Third plans to open within a few weeks. Its manager, who owns a Key Food on Kings Highway, is in charge and his supermarket provides deliveries for Bay Ridge.

There was no news on the proposed city Greenmarket for Bay Ridge, although Greenmarket NYC officials have mentioned that an announcement of a site is imminent. The pastor rejected a site at Our Lady of Angels parking lot.

Who’s on Third? Not Starbucks

Despite a petition campaign by the “Starbucks On Third� group to prevent its closing, the Starbucks at 8414 Third Ave. will be down to its “last drop� on Sept. 26, its last day of operation.

A letter and petition with 247 signatures was submitted to Starbucks corporate headquarters in Seattle opposing the closing. The site is one of 10 to be closed in the city and the only one in Brooklyn.

On the block opposite Starbucks is the popular Caffe Café at the corner of 84th Street, in operation since the mid-1990s. Bay Ridge has other Starbucks on Third Avenue at 75th and 92nd streets, and on 86th Street just east of Fifth Avenue.

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