Centralized curbside pickup areas coming to LI shopping centers

The coronavirus pandemic is dealing a costly blow to the retail industry, as only supermarkets and other businesses deemed essential are open -- and social distancing is changing the way we shop.

At least two owners of Long Island shopping centers plan to help customers and retailers adapt to the change in shopping habits by designating centralized curbside pickup areas at their retail properties.  And some grocers and other retailers have launched their own curbside pickup services recently.

The two shopping center landlords -- Federal Realty Investment Trust and Kimco Realty Corp. -- are designating the parking lot areas for curbside pickup for essential businesses open now and shops that will be reopening in the future after government restrictions are relaxed, they said.

Federal Realty, which owns Hauppauge Shopping Center, Huntington Square and Melville Mall, will start its “contactless” program, The Pick-Up, at its New York properties May 15, the Rockville, Md.-based company said.

“We see this as a long-term solution to finding even more convenient ways for customers to shop,” Joe Byrnes, vice president of leasing at Federal Realty, said in a statement. “This will help our tenants to create meaningful engagement with customers that is just not possible through online shopping."

Kimco, a Jericho-based company that owns interests in 409 U.S. shopping centers and mixed-use properties, including 30 on Long Island, recently announced it was rolling out its curbside pickup program at its Texas shopping centers and would be expanding the program nationwide at a time to be determined. 

Kimco’s Long Island shopping centers include Airport Plaza in Farmingdale, Veterans Memorial Plaza in Commack, and Jericho Commons.

“While curbside pickup was already gaining traction before the pandemic, some of our national retailers are now reporting a 200% increase in curbside pickup orders. By formalizing the process and expanding it beyond national retailers to our local mom and pops, we hope to help tenants quickly ramp back up sales as the economy begins to open again,” Conor Flynn, Kimco’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.

In Federal Realty’s and Kimco’s programs, customers buy items by phone or online and then arrange with the stores a time to pick up the purchases at the designated pickup areas from the retailers' employees.  Federal’s program is considered “contactless” because store employees will place items in shoppers' vehicles, without the customers ever having to leave their automobiles, the company said.

In Kimco’s program, retailers will determine how products are transferred to the customers. 

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo issued an executive order closing all non-essential businesses March 20.  Businesses will reopen regionally in phases starting May 15, but Long Island and other downstate areas likely will reopen much later because they are higher-risk regions for the spread of the virus, Cuomo said Monday.

Amid the business shutdowns nationwide and social distancing measures in stores that are open, consumers have turned more to online shopping.

Nationwide, sales of items purchased online and picked up in stores, which includes curbside pickup, increased 62% between Feb. 24 and March 21 compared with sales in the same period a year earlier, according to Adobe Analytics, a division of San Jose, California-based software company Adobe Inc.​

Some grocers and other retailers that have been allowed to remain open as essential businesses recently introduced their own curbside pickup programs as part of social distancing efforts.

Through a partnership with retail delivery service Instacart, grocer Stew Leonard's began offering curbside pickup within the past few weeks at all seven of its supermarkets, including the two on Long Island – at Airport Plaza in Farmingdale and Stew Leonard’s Plaza in East Meadow, said spokeswoman Meghan Bell.

Customers using the service buy groceries from Stew Leonard’s using the Instacart app, then drive to a Stew Leonard’s, where store employees load the groceries into customers' cars. 

Also, Stew Leonard’s Wines & Spirits of Farmingdale began offering curbside pickup the week of March 9, Bell said.

That alcohol store is seeing about 35% of its sales come from curbside pickups, while 2% of sales from the seven Stew Leonard’s supermarkets comes from curbside pickup, she said.

Stew Leonard’s customers who use curbside pickup for groceries spend 64% more money than those who buy in stores, Bell said.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.