"We're creating a more live/work/play environment," Cord Meyer Development vice president Joe Forgione said back in February, describing plans for the parking lot off 26th Avenue at Bay Terrace Shopping Center. Most people who read that quote probably filed it under construction news and moved on. But the phrase turns out to describe more than one project. The company signing leases for a new bakery and bagel shop this fall is the same company pouring foundations for 145 apartments a few hundred feet away, and it is the same company that has spent five years funding the free yoga classes at Crocheron Park. Three things that look unrelated on a Tuesday morning drive down Bell Boulevard are actually one landlord's strategy playing out on three different fronts.
What's Filling the Empty Storefronts
Nothing Bundt Cakes and PopUp Bagels are set to open between Chipotle and Chip City at Bay Terrace Shopping Center late this fall. Nothing Bundt Cakes will take roughly 2,500 square feet for its handcrafted cakes and Bundtlets, and PopUp Bagels, which started in Connecticut before expanding across the Northeast, will occupy about 1,600 square feet next door. Both are being brought in by the same franchisee, Fresh Dining Concepts.
That's the visible layer. Underneath it, Cord Meyer has also confirmed that Barnes & Noble is coming back to Bay Terrace in 2027, and the leasing push follows what the company itself has described as a multi-million-dollar investment in the shopping center's facades, outdoor seating, and event spaces over the past couple of years. None of this reads like a single tenant swap. It reads like a shopping center trying to become something closer to a small downtown than a strip mall, one signed lease at a time.
| What's coming | Where | Expected timing |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing Bundt Cakes, PopUp Bagels | Between Chipotle and Chip City, Bay Terrace | Late fall 2026 |
| Barnes & Noble | Bay Terrace Shopping Center | 2027 |
| Residences at Bay Terrace | Upper-level parking lots off 26th Avenue | Roughly two-year build, started February 2026 |
The Parking Lot Everyone Drove Past
The more consequential project is the one most residents haven't walked through, because it's happening on the parking deck. Cord Meyer broke ground earlier this year on three five-story buildings totaling 145 rental units, rising on what had been underused upper-level parking off 26th Avenue, on the shopping center's southwest corner between 210th Place and 212th Street. Traffic and parking studies apparently showed the lot wasn't earning its footprint, and the company decided to build housing on it instead.
This isn't a speculative filing sitting in a drawer. Avison Young arranged a $75 million construction loan from New York Life Investment Management's Real Estate Investors team, and Cord Meyer has said the total project represents an investment north of $100 million. Twenty-nine of the 145 units, or 20 percent, are reserved as affordable housing under the state's 485x tax abatement program. Callahan Construction is the general contractor, its first project inside New York City, though the firm is also building a Cord Meyer multifamily project in White Plains.
What residents will actually get, once the buildings are finished:
- One, two, and three-bedroom layouts, with private terraces or balconies on many units
- Individual entrances for select first-floor apartments
- Below-grade parking with electric vehicle charging
- Rooftop terraces, a clubhouse, and a live-in superintendent
- Direct walkable access into the shopping center's grocery, dining, and entertainment tenants
Danielle Molaison, Cord Meyer's vice president of development, put the reasoning plainly: demand for rental housing in Bayside continues to outpace supply, particularly because so much of the existing housing stock is decades old. Whether or not that argument persuades every neighbor watching cranes go up over a parking lot, it explains why a shopping center built in the early 1960s is suddenly adding an apartment complex on top of itself.
Same Name, Different Job Description
Here's the part that doesn't show up in the leasing press releases. This year marks Cord Meyer's fifth as premier sponsor of Friends of Crocheron and John Golden Park, the volunteer group that runs the free Yoga with Ambeka sessions on Monday evenings near the tennis house, coordinates with NYRR to host the Saturday OpenRun at John Golden Park, and organizes the annual spring cleanup and tree count across the more than 60 acres of parkland the group stewards along Little Neck Bay.
None of that funding shows up on a store directory. But it means the same company negotiating retail leases and construction loans a few blocks away is also underwriting the volunteer infrastructure that keeps a free yoga class running every Monday and a community cleanup staffed every spring. It's a quieter kind of presence than a grand opening banner, and it's been running longer than most of the current restaurant names on Bell Boulevard have existed.
The One New Restaurant That Isn't Chasing a Trend
Bell Boulevard has had no shortage of openings this year on its own. Dirty Taco and Tequila opened its first New York City location at 39-17 Bell Boulevard this spring, its seventh location overall after building a following across Nassau and Suffolk in towns like Wantagh, Rockville Centre, and Port Washington.
CoSpire Café, which opened on the same street on June 27, is a different kind of story. It's a project of the Community Inclusion and Development Alliance, a nonprofit that runs a fully licensed food service business designed to train young adults with disabilities in real customer-facing work. The café aims to put roughly 25 students a year through a job-readiness cohort, teaching skills like serving, sales, and independent cleaning routines that many participants can't get access to elsewhere. CIDA's executive director, Young Seh Bae, has said the goal isn't just to run one café well but to build a model other businesses could adopt. The space also doubles as a gallery for Art Beyond Limit, a ten-year-old internship track for artists with disabilities that sponsors a dozen participants annually and is expected to feature their work in a fashion show at CIDA's gala this December.
It's easy to lump every new storefront on Bell Boulevard into the same "restaurant row keeps churning" narrative. CoSpire Café is a reminder that not every opening is chasing the same audience or the same business model.
What to Watch For This Fall
None of this changes daily errands overnight. The bakery and bagel shop won't open until late fall, the apartment buildings are still roughly a year or more from completion, and Barnes & Noble's 2027 date is still comfortably in the future. But the pattern is worth noticing precisely because it's easy to miss at street level. One company's name is attached to the new dessert case at Bay Terrace, the crane visible from the upper parking deck, and the yoga mats laid out near the Crocheron Park tennis house every Monday evening. Whether that consolidation feels like convenience or something to keep an eye on probably depends on how much you already trust the shopping center you've been driving past for years.
If you're the kind of person who likes knowing why your neighborhood looks the way it does this season, not just what's new but who's behind it, that's the kind of local read Joanne Hantzopoulos tends to bring to conversations about Bayside and the surrounding North Shore communities. Reach out anytime you want to talk through what's actually changing here, whether or not a move is anywhere on your mind.