PRESS POINTS

Cohen goes to bat to save Skyview grocery store

Posted

Key Food isn’t leaving its current home at Skyview Shopping Center — at least if Councilman Andrew Cohen has anything to say about it.

Cohen stopped by the Riverdale Avenue grocery store this week after penning a letter to both franchise owner Kevin Luna and landlord Braun Management, urging them to reach an agreement to keep Key Food there after it lease expires next year.

Luna confirmed to The Riverdale Press last month that the agreement keeping his store in place at the aging shopping center is up in the near future, and he was contemplating closing the doors.

“I’ve expressed an interest in extending the lease, but the landlord might have other intentions, other projects in mind with his property, which he hasn’t been able to confirm either,” Luna said at the time. “It’s unpredictable right now.”

One of the biggest neighborhood complaints about the store is its physical condition. The shopping plaza it sits in was constructed in the 1960s, and there’s times it seems like nothing has been done to fix up the center since.

Yet Luna said it could be a lot better — if only he can get Braun to meet his terms to stay.

“If I had a longer-term agreement, I could’ve improved a lot in renovations,” he said at the time. That would include a “whole new store layout with new equipment, everything from top down.”

Some of the areas Luna would like to improve in the store are the checkout counters, coolers, ceiling and the floor.

Braun hasn’t been talking about the state of the lease, but many speculated on what might replace Key Food, including some calls for a Whole Foods.

Andrew Cohen, Key Food, Skyview Shopping Center, Kevin Luna, Braun Management, Michael Hinman,

Comments