'Expensive' Market To Open At Astoria Luxury Building Next Year

ASTORIA, QUEENS — A luxury grocery store chain is moving into Astoria's most luxurious condo building.

Lincoln Market, an upscale grocer with several locations in Brooklyn, plans to open its first Queens outpost at The Rowan, located at 21-21 31st Street in Ditmars Steinway, in early 2023 developers announced on Thursday. The market signed a 20 year lease, records show.

The Rowan, which is home to the neighborhood's most expensive condo to date, was marketed towards wealthy New Yorkers (especially Manhattanites) as an amenity-studded building; of which Lincoln Market is now a part.

Kostas Koutsothanasis, COO of RockFarmer Properties, the real estate agency behind the building, said that Lincoln Market will provide an "incredible new option for local residents" who've contended with nearby grocery store closures in recent years.

Lincoln Market, however, has been criticized as an unaffordable replacement to more inexpensive markets, especially in other rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods that have seen grocery store closures.

In Brooklyn's Prospect Lefferts Gardens, where Lincoln Market opened its flagship location at The Lincoln (another luxury building), neighbors told the Brooklyn Paper that the grocery store is "significantly more expensive" than other markets that have closed, prompting concerns that some neighbors won't be able to afford to buy food locally.

"While it doesn’t meet the technical definition of a food desert, it can be that," Alejandra Caraballo, who lives in the neighborhood, told the paper.

Neighbors in Ditmars Steinway have been contending with similar development patterns in the past couple of years: Grocery stores and small businesses closing while luxury developments and chains open (much to the chagrin of locals).

In the news release announcing Lincoln Market's Queens outpost, developers noted that the grocery store will join "a growing list of retailers in, or opening in, the Ditmars section of Astoria including Target and TJ Maxx, among others."

Lincoln Market's new location on 31st Street will offer online shopping and home delivery, and the market will be stocked with "fresh produce, prepared meals, and gourmet foods and groceries," per the news release.

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