New small-format Target opens in Elmont

Long Island’s second small-format Target store opened in Elmont Wednesday.

The 24,500-square-foot store at 1730 Hempstead Tpke., in the Home Depot shopping center, offers a more limited merchandise selection than the chain’s full-size stores. It includes a CVS pharmacy and a Starbucks, as well as groceries, apparel, health and beauty products, home goods, sporting goods, toys, seasonal items and electronics.

It is the chain’s 31st smaller-format store, said a Target spokeswoman, Kristy Welker. The Island’s first small-format Target opened in October in a 46,000-square-foot space at the Meadowbrook Commons center in Freeport.

The “flexible format” stores are typically located in and around cities and near college campuses, Welker said. By contrast, the retailer’s nearly 1,800 full-size stores average 135,000 square feet, Welker said.

Such smaller-format stores are increasingly popular among retailers, said Randall Briskin, vice president of retail leasing at the Feil Organization, which owns the Elmont shopping center through a holding company.

With shoppers making more purchases online, Briskin said, retailers are focusing their brick-and-mortar stores — especially those in metropolitan areas — on “those products that are tangible, that need to be touched and felt, as opposed to those that can be clicked online and delivered to your house. That’s a global trend.”

The Elmont store will hold a grand opening celebration Sunday, with balloons and giveaways of tote bags and stuffed dogs, a store manager said.

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By Maura McDermott

maura.mcdermott@newsday.commauramcdermott

Maura McDermott covers education. Since joining Newsday in 2012, she also has worked on the investigations team and covered real estate and the business of health care.