Vacant 125th Street Pathmark Site In Harlem Remains In Limbo: Report

HARLEM, NY – For nearly a decade, the site of a once-thriving supermarket has festered, a vacant expanse that currently stretches across an entire city block on 125th Street in East Harlem.

Now, according to a report in Commercial Observer, Extell, the developer which picked up the former Pathmark supermarket for a reported $39 million in 2014, is offloading a portion of the site – 180 East 125th Street – to an unknown buyer for $70 million.

News of the deal follows the 2023 sale of another piece of the vacant site – 160 East 125th Street – which the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) purchased for $82 million. An expansion of the Second Avenue Subway is planned to eventually reach 125th Street, where it will meet the 4/5/6 lines at Lexington Avenue.

The former Pathmark, at 160 East 125th Street – between Lexington Avenue and 3rd Avenue, just steps from the 125th Street 4/5/6 subway station – was once lauded as a symbol of East Harlem’s future.

Hopes Fade

On Sept. 1, 1997, then New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and New York Governor George Pataki touted the groundbreaking of the construction of the brand new supermarket in East Harlem, which would “not only double East Harlem's food retailing square footage…[but] create jobs, lower food prices, and improve the neighborhood's economic health.”

The store opened in 1999, becoming the "first full-service supermarket in Harlem in three decades" and even anchoring a commercial revival in the area, according to the New York Times.

Mystery surrounded the closure of the popular location, which reportedly served as many as 30,000 customers a week before it closed in 2015.

According to the Wall Street Journal, it wasn't clear at the time whether the closure was due to parent company A&P's bankruptcy, or if it came as a result of the sale of the property to developer Extell, which purchased the site from a partnership led by Abyssinian Development in April 2014.

For about six years the vacant Pathmark festered, until April 2020, when filings with the Department of Buildings revealed that developer Extell planned to construct an office development – with commercial space – on the site.

In 2021, the building that once housed the supermarket was demolished.

Two years later, in 2023, Extell reportedly changed it’s plans, abandoning the office concept and instead envisioning a 543-unit residential building for the site, which would include a Brooklyn Fare grocery.

But no new construction has taken place, and its unclear whether the new buyer will seek to move forward with the previously planned residential build.

As of August, the site remained empty, enclosed by construction boards adorned with vibrant murals.