Mayor Zohran Mamdani is proposing a $70 million investment for a “feasibility study” focused on his government-owned grocery store initiative, according to information obtained by The Post. This move comes at a time when he is lamenting financial shortages and considering tax hikes to bolster the city’s budget.
The proposal allocates new funding to the city’s Economic Development Corporation for the purpose of identifying potential sites for five grocery stores, one in each borough, as part of the mayor’s commitment. Sources familiar with early budget drafts confirmed this plan.
One insider with insight into the project described it as a “feasibility study.”
Another source expressed disbelief at the city’s decision to allocate funds to the grocery store initiative, especially as the mayor warns of a looming $5.4 billion budget deficit in New York City.
“It’s absurd!” the source exclaimed.
This previously unreported budget allocation for the project comes as Mamdani intensifies his demands for the state to increase taxes on the wealthy. Without such measures, he warns, property taxes may need to be raised to address the city’s financial challenges.
The former Queens state Assemblyman vowed on the campaign trail that he could easily roll out the five government-owned-and-operated food stores for merely $60 million.
“It’s like a public option for produce,” Mamdani pitched in one of his polished social media clips, promising to pull taxpayer money from corporatization and funnel the funding to his network of stores.
But the fresh-faced Democratic socialist mayor has offered up no concrete details as to how the city would operate the day-to-day of a grocery store instead of offering subsidies to private businesses.
The actual cost of running the stores was not immediately known.
“Overspending tens of millions of dollars on a study to look at a thing rather than actually spending the money on people is textbook limousine socialist move,” said one Democratic insider.
“Mamdani is going to be the first mayor to spend money on a study on how to do his job.”
Mamdani brushed off criticism on the campaign trail that called out his plan as half-baked.
He did say that the city-owned grocery shops would not pay property taxes or rent as a way to keep prices low.
Mamdani has challenged his ally, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and Albany lawmakers to approve his Democratic Socialists of America-sponsored “tax the rich” plan — which the governor has largely resisted as she faces re-election this year.
Otherwise, Mamdani has claimed he’d be “forced” to raise New Yorkers’ property taxes by nearly 10% to fill the fiscal gap that he’s blamed on his predecessor Eric Adams.
“We inherited a historic budget gap,” the mayor said earlier this month when unveiling his massive $127 billion preliminary budget for 2027 — which critics have said does next to nothing to get spending under control.
The preliminary financial plan does call for library funding to be slashed by $30 million — a move that, when done by Adams amid the migrant crisis, led to months of backlash from New Yorkers, including Mamdani and his allies.
The investment for the study would mark a shift for the EDC, a quasi-independent organization meant to encourage economic growth in the Big Apple. It currently is leaderless, The New York Times first reported earlier this month.
The agency has been at the center of nearly every major economic ventures that promote job growth through private-public partnerships.
But the EDC also has much less oversight, as a nonprofit, leading it to often get tapped my mayors for their passion projects.
City Hall did not respond for comment.
