Irish fast-fashion retailer Primark’s push into the United States will include the popular chain opening its first store on Long Island by 2023.
The retailer will open two stores in the state by September 2023, one of which will be a 35,100-square-foot, two-story store in Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, Primark said in a statement Monday.
The other store will be in a 35,900-square-foot space in Gertz Plaza on Jamaica Avenue in Queens.
“These new stores will mark another important milestone in bringing Primark’s unique formula of Amazing Fashion at Amazing Prices to more US customers, while also creating local job opportunities in Queens and Long Island,” Andy Stewart, retail president at Primark US, said in the statement.
The Green Acres Mall store will occupy part of a former J.C. Penney space, said Kelvia Payero Brito, a spokeswoman for the mall. The J.C. Penney closed in April after 63 years at the mall.
Founded in 1969, Primark stores sell adults’ and children’s clothes, as well as home goods, at discounted prices.
The company is owned by Associated British Foods plc, a London-based conglomerate whose divisions include retail, sugar production, groceries and agriculture.
Primark has more than 385 stores in 13 countries.
In 2015, the chain entered the U.S. market, where it now has 11 stores. Its two existing stores in New York State are on Staten Island and in Brooklyn.
The company will open a store in Chicago this year and it has signed a lease for a new store in Philadelphia, Primark said in the statement.
On Feb. 25, the Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency approved a sublease agreement between Green Acres Mall and Primark.
The IDA holds title to the mall because the property operates under a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement the agency approved in 2015. That agreement makes it necessary for the mall’s owner, Santa Monica, California-based real estate investment trust Macerich Co., to get the IDA’s approval for all tenant leases.
The Primark in Green Acres Mall will employ an estimated 150 full-time equivalent employees, according to the IDA.
