Ideal Marketplace Renews 15K-SF Grocery Store at Chelsea’s 317 Ninth Avenue

Supermarket chain Ideal Marketplace has renewed the lease on its 14,770-square-foot store in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. 

The retail deal’s address at 317 Ninth Avenue resides between West 28th and West 29th streets, inside a United States Postal Service (USPS) property that spans the entire city block. USPS, which is actively operating at the connected 341 Ninth Avenue, owns the five-story property.

Founded in 2007, Ideal Marketplace, a cooperative of independent food grocers, operates locations in New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Georgia and Rhode Island, according to its website.

The terms of the Chelsea location’s renewed lease are unclear, but asking rents have risen across the city’s prime retail submarkets, according to a second-quarter report by JLL. In the nearby Meatpacking District, retail asking rents averaged $329 per square foot during the period.

The brokers involved in the renewal deal were also unclear. A spokesperson for Ideal Marketplace did not respond to a request for comment. 

The site of the store’s renewal, also known as Morgan South, is part of the city’s historic USPS distribution center, which stretches across West 29th Street to the building known as Morgan North. Morgan North was recently repositioned into a multi-use property.   

Although USPS leases most of its post offices, USPS is a landlord in its own right. The postal service owns 8,400 facilities nationwide, according to a 2020 report by the think tank R Street. 

Emily Davis can be reached at edavis@commercialobserver.com.