Greenlawn Farms opening at former Waldbaum’s in Greenlawn

A newly renovated supermarket is set to open next week at a shopping center in Greenlawn, replacing a former Waldbaum’s.

The 27,000-square-foot Greenlawn Farms at 77 Pulaski Rd. will open on April 28 at 11 a.m. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held on April 30 at 11:30 a.m., a company representative said Tuesday.

The owner of Greenlawn Farms is Southdown Marketplace, a family-owned, nonunion operator of specialty grocery stores in Huntington and Northport.

The Greenlawn store will occupy most of the 40,000-square-foot space left vacant by Waldbaum’s. Nearly 12,000 square feet is still available, according to Garden City-based Sabre Real Estate Group, which is the broker for Greenlawn Plaza.

The Waldbaum’s closing in November left more than 500 residents of Paumanack Village, a federally subsidized, independent-living community for low-income seniors and people with disabilities, scrambling to find other places to buy their groceries.

Residents at the senior housing complex will get a 10 percent discount at the new grocery on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Paumanack Village service coordinator Mary D’Agostino said. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, also known as food stamps, will also be accepted, a company representative confirmed.

Last year, Shanghai Enterprises, a real estate developer based in Jamaica, Queens, purchased the lease for the former Greenlawn Waldbaum’s for $3.26 million from the bankrupt A&P chain.

In October, a bankruptcy judge approved the sale of the store lease to Shanghai Enterprises after company representatives said they did not intend to operate a supermarket. Most supermarket operators that purchased locations from Waldbaum’s and Pathmark’s parent company, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., had agreed to hire some union store employees.

News of the deal with Southdown in December led Mineola-based United Food and Commercial Workers Local 338, which represented Waldbaum’s workers, to charge that the new owner maneuvered to avoid hiring more than 60 laid-off union workers from the Waldbaum’s.

Union officials at the time said they are ready to take legal action over the opening of the grocery store. The union is still looking at options, a union spokeswoman said Wednesday.

But a lawyer for Shanghai had said the company made it clear in court that opening a supermarket was not out of the question.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., headquartered in Montvale, New Jersey, filed in July for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and reorganization.

All 51 Waldbaum’s and Pathmark stores operated by A&P on Long Island were closed by November. Thirty were purchased by supermarket chains, 20 were turned over to their landlords and one — the Greenlawn store — was sold to a real estate company.