New Supermarket Signals Change in South Park Slope

With the arrival next week of South Park Slope’s first high-end supermarket, the neighborhood is taking a significant step toward shaking off its reputation as second fiddle to the more recognized area to the north, local business owners and real estate brokers say.Union Market, which has operated a store on Union Street since 2005, is opening a new location on Seventh Avenue between 13th and 14th streets as early as next week. The outpost will include a full produce department, cheese section, fish and meat counters, olive bar, bread area, and prepared food section.“I think it will have an impact on the way people feel about the South Slope,” a Corcoran broker in Brooklyn, Stan Gerasimczyk, said. “More people may consider going into the 20s and the teens, especially as more and more businesses open up.”Over the last several years, small specialty food stores have opened along Seventh Avenue, but residents still had to make long trips to neighboring communities to shop at a full-service supermarket.“Our customers invite us to open in their neighborhoods,” one of the three founders of Union Market, Marko Lalic, said. “We want to be in upcoming areas.”Mr. Lalic said Union Market is planning on opening a store on Fulton Street in Fort Greene in the spring and is interested in Cobble Hill and Williamsburg as possible sites for future locations. “We’re very excited for them to come to the neighborhood,” a co-founder of Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights, Aaron Brashear, said. “There are very few fresh green markets here. There is a bit of a void.”Greenwood Heights is situated around Green-Wood Cemetery in an area just south of South Park Slope. Still, Mr. Brashear said he is worried that rental prices may begin to rise because of all the higher-end amenities moving in.Calling Union Market the “Balducci’s of Brooklyn,” the district manager of Community Board 6, Craig Hammerman, said such new stores are balancing out the contrasts between the north and south sides of the neighborhood. In addition to new developments rising across the neighborhood, such as the Vue on 16th Street and 515 condominiums at 13th Street, new bars and restaurants are increasing foot traffic on weekends, he said.Across the street from the new Union Market, a rare-beer bar called Beer Table is expected to open in January.“People are really paying attention to what is going on down here,” the owner, Justin Philips, said.While Mr. Philips said the new supermarket is a “sign of change,” he said smaller specialty shops like Grab on Seventh Avenue and 15th Street could get hurt by bigger chains moving in.Mr. Lalic and his partners, Martin Nuñez and Paul Fernandez, have spent years working in the gourmet food industry. Before starting the store in Brooklyn, Messrs. Lalic and Nuñez worked as managers for Gourmet Garage in Manhattan.“It’s really a kind of throwback to the neighborhood grocery store,” the general manager of Union Market, David Grotenstein, said. “We are geared toward the way New Yorkers shop, which is not unlike the way Parisians or people in Milan shop. They are spontaneous about what they want for dinner and want to decide what looks good for that night.”

New Supermarket Signals Change in South Park Slope

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