Wegmans Will Open Harrison Store This Fall With Restrictions

HARRISON, NY — With New York reopening as the new coronavirus pandemic subsides locally, Wegmans is planning to open its Harrison store in the fall — with a few changes.

"Hiring is ongoing for the Harrison store," said spokeswoman Marcie Rivera. "We have not yet announced an opening date, but we are now targeting a fall opening."

The original June opening was canceled when New York shut down.

According to the company's website, they are committed to opening the three stores they have scheduled for 2020, not just in Harrison but also in West Cary, North Carolina and Fairfax, Virginia.

However, the openings won't have the usual hoopla, officials said on the website.

As we keep the safety of our employees and customers a top priority, we’ve had to rethink how we open these stores. While we love the excitement of opening morning, with customers anxiously awaiting to see their new Wegmans, we know this isn’t possible as the need to maintain social distancing remains. With that in mind, we will share a targeted timeframe that the store will open. We believe this will allow us to keep our employees and customers safe, and also give us flexibility to open our doors as soon as possible.

We look forward to meeting you in-person but will be limiting the number of customers in the store at any given time to ensure we are able to maintain safe social distancing. With these measures in place, we ask for your patience and understanding, as you may need to wait in line to enter the store.

We are excited to share that all three stores will open with online ordering via curbside pickup and delivery, and we encourage customers to take advantage of these services.

Wegmans announced in May that it was postponing the June opening.

Not a surprise, as Westchester County was one of the hardest-hit by the coronavirus. New Rochelle was the second community in New York with a case of the virus officially known as COVID-19. That was announced as the state's second case on March 3. By March 12, when state officials aggressively ramped up their response with a virus "containment zone" and drive-through testing center in New Rochelle, there were 121 cases. By the time Westchester's first case had recovered enough to be taken off a ventilator, March 19, there were 798 confirmed cases in the county.

As of Sunday, the state's COVID tracker reported 34,327 people in Westchester have tested positive for the virus since the outbreak began.

On Monday, County Executive George Latimer reported 6 active COVID-19 cases in Harrison.