West Orange's Tory Corner neighborhood is about to get something it hasn't had in roughly three decades: an actual supermarket. The West Orange Township Planning Board voted unanimously to approve Leon Marketplace, a new grocery store set to rise at 262–270 Main Street on the site of the shuttered Americana Diner and a former Walgreens.
The last full-fledged supermarket in Tory Corner was an A&P at 216 Main Street that closed about 30 years ago, according to the Essex Review. In the decades since, the neighborhood has lacked a full-fledged supermarket. As reported by NJ.com, the planning board's approval clears the way for developers to demolish nearly the entire existing site and combine two separate lots into one new building.
Robert Bagoff called the project a welcome addition to the township, per the same NJ.com report. The site currently includes multiple driveways and blank walls that the outlet notes lack any features drawing pedestrians in — conditions the new development is designed to change.
What's Replacing the Diner and Pharmacy
The Americana Diner served its final meal after 12 years in business, closing on March 3, 2025, according to New Jersey Monthly. The diner had operated 24 hours a day and was counted among the last remaining round-the-clock diners left in New Jersey, per NJ.com's reporting. Its closure, alongside the departure of the Walgreens that once shared the block, came amid commercial vacancies along the Tory Corner corridor, according to the Essex Review.
The new building will place the supermarket at the corner of Main Street and Erwin Place, according to NJ.com. Municipal planning submissions describe a 19,744-square-foot structure, with a 13,934-square-foot ground-floor shopping area and 5,810 square feet of second-floor space, as detailed by Patch. That upper level will not be open to customers and will be used strictly for store storage.
A Kinetic Facade and a Loading Zone Compromise
Developers plan to keep the site's rear and side walls while giving the front a striking new look: a facade made of zinc paneling and mirrored stainless steel that the design team has dubbed a “kinetic facade,” engineered to catch and reflect movement on the sidewalk, per NJ.com's account.
Traffic planning also factored into the approval. Gary Dean explained the project's loading-zone plan, which calls for a temporary loading zone on Main Street operating weekday mornings from 7 to 11 a.m. That arrangement is meant to avoid trucks repeatedly crossing the sidewalk to reach an on-site loading dock, according to the same NJ.com report. The approved site plan also includes 46 off-street parking spaces with five electric vehicle charging credits, 10 on-street parking spaces, rain gardens, and shade trees, Patch reports. No construction timeline has been announced yet.
Filling a State-Designated Food Desert
The project lands squarely within a state policy push. The New Jersey Economic Development Authority designated an area encompassing Orange, West Orange, and Montclair as a food desert community back in February 2022, citing a low supermarket access score, according to NJ.com. That designation placed the region 22nd out of 50 food desert communities statewide, covering a population of more than 50,000 residents, according to NJEDA ranking data.
The designation made the area eligible for state funding aimed at improving food access, funding authorized under New Jersey's Food Desert Relief Act, signed in January 2021. Under that law, the NJEDA can offer up to $240 million over six years — as much as $40 million annually in tax credits, grants, and loans — to incentivize supermarket development in designated food deserts. Statewide, more than 1.5 million New Jersey residents across all 21 counties live within designated food desert communities, per NJEDA data. According to the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, FEED NJ is funded with $30 million in proceeds from the agency's 2023 and 2024 Food Desert Relief Tax Credit Auctions. Whether Leon Marketplace will ultimately draw on those state incentives remains an open question tied to its still-unannounced construction schedule.
The stakes extend beyond one Main Street storefront. Food insecurity across New Jersey rose 75% between 2020 and 2024, now touching about 13% of the state's population, or roughly 1.2 million residents, according to The Jersey Vindicator's reporting cited in Hoodline's West Ward hunger coverage. According to NJ.gov, food insecurity increased from 8.3% of households in 2019-2021 to 9.8% in 2022-2024, an 18% increase.
Business Groups See an Economic Catalyst
The retail operators behind Leon Marketplace are developing a new grocery store in West Orange, New Jersey, according to the Essex Review. The project is planned for the Main Street corridor.
Locally, the Downtown West Orange Alliance, which represents business and property owners along the corridor, backed the project and said it could serve as an economic catalyst for the area, per NJ.com. Grocery stores, unlike many retail tenants, can function as economic anchors by generating steady, seven-day-a-week foot traffic — a dynamic officials are counting on to help stabilize a stretch of Main Street that has weathered a string of closures in recent years.
