It's official: Trader Joe's is coming to the old Century 21 site on Bay Ridge's 86th Street

Bay Ridge is getting a Trader Joe's. The grocery chain is the national supermarket tenant headed to Century Marketplace, the redevelopment of the long-empty Century 21 department store on 86th Street, Council Member Kayla Santosuosso announced in a video posted Sunday.

"It's happening. No, really. Trader Joe's coming to 86th Street," Santosuosso wrote with the video on Instagram. Brooklyn Paper reported that no opening date has been announced.

The mystery grocer, named

The developers, MCB Real Estate and Osiris Ventures, announced in August that a "nationally recognized specialty grocery anchor" and the discount retailer Burlington had signed leases totaling 60,112 square feet at the site, but they did not name the grocer. They described it as the first national grocer to serve the immediate Southwest Brooklyn area, according to their announcement.

Century Marketplace is a $130 million mixed-use project at 458 86th St., on the former department store's 14-lot assemblage between Fourth and Fifth avenues, half a block from the 86th Street R station, the developers said. With the two leases, the 120,000-square-foot development was 65% pre-leased, with room for two more junior anchors and 15,000 square feet of smaller shops. The developers also closed on $76.7 million in construction financing from Truist Bank, they said.

In a statement Sunday, Santosuosso said the plan has always been to bring 86th Street back "bigger and better than ever." She said the store could draw more shoppers to the area and help independent shops and restaurants along Third and Fifth avenues, and she thanked Osiris Ventures and her predecessor, former Council Member Justin Brannan, Brooklyn Paper reported.

A long wait for the Century 21 site

Century 21, which the Gindi family opened in Bay Ridge in 1961, closed the store amid the chain's 2020 bankruptcy, and an earlier plan by the family for a large retail destination on the site was scrapped in 2024, according to Brooklyn Paper. MCB and Osiris bought the 86th Street property for $47.5 million in 2025, the outlet reported.

The department store's holdings were sold off in pieces. A separate property on 87th Street, which includes the former Century 21 parking lot, was bought by the Abed family and is expected to become a SuperFresh supermarket, Brooklyn Paper reported. That project is not part of Century Marketplace.

What we don't know yet

• Opening date: None has been announced.
• Burlington: The discount chain also signed a lease at the site in August; no opening date has been given for it either.