Downtown Jersey City's New ShopRite Is the Anchor Hudson Exchange Was Built Around

From the sidewalk on Marin Boulevard, the new ShopRite is easy to miss. The supermarket sits on the second floor of Everton, the 60-story tower at 99 Provost Street. You reach the aisles by escalator or elevator, and the parking decks are inside the same building. The store it replaced, the ShopRite of Metro Plaza at 400 Marin Boulevard, is still across the street.

The new store has been open for about four weeks. Inserra Supermarkets cut the ribbon on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. In Hudson Exchange, the grocery store moved first. Everton's ground-floor shops are expected to open later, and the master plan's park and new streets are still in the planning stage.

Same Store, One Block and One Floor Over

The Wakefern Food Corp. announcement calls the new location ShopRite of Hudson Exchange Place. Jersey Digs and other local coverage shorten it to ShopRite of Hudson Exchange. Either way, it's the same store run by the same operator. Inserra Supermarkets is a family-owned company that Patsy Inserra founded in 1954, and it runs 24 ShopRite stores in New Jersey and New York.

The 65,000 figure is just subtraction. Wakefern says the new store is 20,000 square feet larger than the old one, which makes it about 30 percent bigger.

What the Extra 20,000 Square Feet Holds

Most of the added space went to food you can eat without cooking much. Progressive Grocer lists these departments:

• A butcher counter and a seafood department
• Sushi and a deli
• Prepared meals, plus a hot bar and a soup bar
• A bakery and a produce section
• Grab-and-go, ready-to-cook and ready-to-heat meals

Two additions aren't food. The store has a registered dietitian who offers nutrition counseling. NJBIZ and Progressive Grocer also report a ShopRite Wine & Spirits in the development, and Jersey Digs describes the new store as including a liquor store.

At the old store, a grocery run, a hot dinner and a bottle of wine could take a few stops. At 99 Provost they can all happen on one floor, open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day.

Getting Up to a Second-Floor Supermarket

A supermarket one floor up only works if moving people and carts between floors is easy. Wakefern lists the equipment built for that.

1. Parking. Two parking decks with ticketless entry. You use a mobile app instead of pulling a paper ticket.
2. Getting to the store. Four passenger elevators and three escalators connect the store to the street and the decks.
3. Getting carts back down. Two cart movers take loaded carts between levels, so shoppers don't have to steer a full cart onto an escalator.
4. Checking out. The store also has Caper Carts.

Driving is only one way in. NJBIZ describes Everton as transit-oriented and next to the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail. Someone coming from elsewhere downtown can take the train to the store's front door.

Why the Grocery Store Came First

The developers had promised to keep the store. Everton is a project of BGRE, the firm previously called Brookfield Properties, and G&S Investors. Speaking to Wakefern's newsroom, Abe Naparstek of G&S explained the order of things:

"The Everton project is years in the making. After completing the VYV project in 2020, G&S Investors with our partners at BGRE, have been focused on the next phase of Hudson Exchange. This project delivers on our long-standing commitment that ShopRite, an essential amenity for downtown Jersey City, stays open for generations to come."

According to NJBIZ, the Everton phase broke ground in 2023, and the store opened a day before the tower itself. NJBIZ called ShopRite a "preserved community anchor."

Lawrence R. Inserra Jr., chairman and CEO of Inserra Supermarkets, focused on continuity in the same announcement. He said the company looks forward "to serving both our longtime customers and welcoming new neighbors for years to come."

Those new neighbors are close by. Everton has 802 apartments. VYV North and VYV South, the two 36-story towers from the first phase, have 850 more units and 20,000 square feet of retail.

The Ground Floor Is Next

Everton's upstairs is open. Its street level is still filling in. The tower has 19,000 square feet of ground-floor retail. NJBIZ reported on Oct. 15 that three tenants were set to open there at a later date:

• Modcup Coffee, a Jersey City roaster
• Goldfish Swim School
• A new restaurant concept from the team behind Izakaya Kumade

Modcup's space is a real expansion. In July, GridCRE reported that Modcup had leased 1,843 square feet on Everton's ground floor for a café and a larger roastery. Founder Travas Clifton said the new location would run a 35-kilogram Loring roaster. Modcup's other cafés are at 25 Senate Place and 479 Palisade Avenue.

The order matters. A grocery store gives people a reason to come to the block every week. Coffee, swim lessons and a sit-down restaurant are easier to fill when weekly shoppers are already walking past.

Where Hudson Exchange Goes From Here

The ShopRite and Everton make up the second phase of a much bigger plan. NJBIZ describes Hudson Exchange as an 18-acre project covering six blocks. ROI-NJ also described Everton as part of the six-block, 18-acre master plan.

On paper, the plan changes how this part of downtown connects to the rest of it. According to Jersey Digs, the master plan calls for seven redeveloped parcels around a central green space, with new roads. GridCRE describes those roads as a way to reconnect the historic street grid, and puts the full Metro Plaza redevelopment at six million square feet and 5,500 residential units.

Some public space is tied to Everton directly. GridCRE reports that the tower will have more than 20,000 square feet of publicly accessible green space, including plazas and a dog park along Marin Boulevard.

Frank Frallicciardi, senior vice president of development at BGRE, said in the Wakefern release that Everton was meant to add to "the vibrancy and connectivity of the Jersey City community." The supermarket is the first part of that plan that downtown can actually use. The ground-floor tenants are expected to open later, and the green space and new streets are still part of the plan.

Until then, the details people need are simple. The store is at 99 Provost Street, one floor up, open 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day. Parking is in the building's decks, and the light rail stops next door.

If you'd like to talk through what Hudson Exchange means for your corner of downtown, BLGRV Estates follows these projects closely and is happy to help. Work with Monique.