When Will Montvale's Trader Joe's Open? Where the Chestnut Ridge Project Stands Now

Montvale's Planning Board said yes to the Trader Joe's plan on March 3, 2026, more than seven months ago. People in town still ask when the store opens, and the vote doesn't answer that. Opening day depends on a construction clock, and that clock starts only after the final permits are issued. As of mid-October 2026, several permits are still pending.

The project is at the Chestnut Ridge Shopping Center on Chestnut Ridge Road. Regency Centers owns the center, and the applicant is UB Chestnut LLC, which filed in care of Regency Centers. Regency bought out its partners' remaining stake in August 2025 for $9.2 million, so it now owns the whole property. The rest of this post covers what has been decided, what hasn't, and why the gap between the two matters more than any rumored opening date.

The fast part already happened

The local approval moved quickly. Mayor Mike Ghassali announced the proposal in November 2025, and the Planning Board first took it up at its December 2 meeting at Borough Hall, as Pascack Press reported. Here is the order of events since then:

1. January 8, 2026. The Fresh Market told NJBIZ it had decided not to renew its Montvale lease. A state filing listed 55 layoffs expected by April 12.
2. January 20, 2026. The Planning Board voted to have its attorney draft an approval resolution, with conditions stated on the record.
3. March 3, 2026. The board adopted the resolution. It granted preliminary and final site plan approval, along with variances, waivers and an environmental impact statement.
4. Mid-April 2026. The Fresh Market closed its Montvale store, Patch reported in September.
5. June 2026. Bergen County approved a road-opening permit. Chestnut Ridge Road is a county road, so the project needed one.

That's roughly three months from the first hearing to final site plan approval. According to the borough's legal notice, copies of the adopted resolution are on file with the Planning Board Secretary and available for inspection. That resolution holds the final conditions on items such as signage.

What the approved plan puts on the site

The plan is smaller than most people picture when they hear "new grocery store." Here are the main numbers from the planning documents and hearing testimony:

A 13,562-square-foot store is less than a third the size of the average grocery store. The Food Industry Association puts that average at more than 42,000 square feet, as NorthJersey.com noted in its August 27 report. The restaurant building would go in the parking area near Drop Fitness.

At the January 20 hearing, a witness for the applicant said revised seat counts for the restaurants had eliminated the need for a parking variance. That's why the required and proposed counts are both exactly 409. The applicant also described a redesigned Chestnut Ridge Road driveway and new internal circulation so Trader Joe's delivery trucks can get through the lot, including closing one of the existing driveways. The same testimony proposed two signs for each restaurant on the pad site and a three-foot Trader Joe's sign. All of this comes from the applicant's testimony. How the board finally conditioned these items is spelled out in the adopted resolution on file with the Planning Board Secretary.

Shake Shack, CAVA and honeygrow are still described as proposed tenants. No reporting found so far says any of them has dropped out or been replaced. No reporting confirms a signed opening, either.

The permits still open

A Montvale construction and zoning employee told NorthJersey.com that the project needs a soil-movement permit from the Planning Board first, and then permits from the borough building department. Each remaining permit is listed below with its last documented status.

Soil movement, Montvale Planning Board. Regency's soil-movement application was on the April 7 meeting, but the board couldn't hear it because notice hadn't been given in time. It hasn't come back since. Neither the September 1 agenda nor its minutes list a public hearing, and the October 6 agenda has no UB Chestnut item. The latest UB Chestnut entry in the borough's legal notice index is dated March 4, 2026. A new hearing would require a new public notice, so that index is the simplest place to watch for the next step.

Flood Hazard Individual Permit, NJ Department of Environmental Protection. This is a state permit covering the parking lot improvements and an access drive for building the new retail structures. The DEP received the application on April 27, 2026 and found it administratively complete the next day. The last milestone in the published DEP bulletin record, dated May 22, 2026, is "Technical Information Requested." A DEP spokesperson told NorthJersey.com in August that state officials had told Regency they needed more information about the project. The DEP's DataMiner application-status tool lets anyone look up the application. This one's activity number is 0236-10-0002.1.

Building permits, and possibly demolition permits. These cover electrical, plumbing, fire safety, new construction and alterations to the existing building. Thomas Garlick, a land use and redevelopment attorney at Murphy, Schiller & Wilkes, told NorthJersey.com that demolition permits could also be needed "to remove part of the existing shopping center."

So the permit chain has three links, and none of them was documented as complete as of October 12, 2026.

Why the opening date depends on the last permit

Trader Joe's itself has said almost nothing. In January, the company told NJBIZ it had no location or timeline to share. NorthJersey.com reported in August that Trader Joe's representatives hadn't commented publicly on the site, and that public records and statements point to the Chestnut Ridge plaza.

The most useful timing benchmark comes from the same NorthJersey.com article. Garlick said construction and demolition for a project this size typically take 18 to 24 months, with winter weather possibly slowing the work. That period starts on the date the final permits are issued.

That benchmark is a general industry range, not a schedule for this project, and it measures the whole project, not just the grocery store. Still, it shows how the math works. The construction window is measured from the date of the last permit, so the months since the March approval sit outside it. If final permits came through early in 2027, an 18-to-24-month window would run into the second half of 2028. Permits issued later would push that range back by the same amount. Nobody has announced a date, and anyone quoting one is guessing ahead of the paperwork.

What stays open at Chestnut Ridge in the meantime

The rest of the center is still operating. Apart from one 1,980-square-foot space, NJBIZ reported in January that the property was fully occupied. The tenants it listed include Jersey Mike's Subs, Drop Fitness, Moxie Salon & Beauty Bar, Perspire Sauna Studio, Chase Bank and Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming. No reporting so far describes active construction or temporary parking or access changes for those businesses. That fits the permit status, since the August report still listed permits as outstanding.

For grocery runs until then, the nearest options are close by. The closest existing Trader Joe's is at 20 Irvington St. in Westwood. Whole Foods Market is at 500 Chestnut Ridge Road in Woodcliff Lake, farther down the same road. Wegmans anchors The Shoppes at DePiero's Farm in Montvale.

The next real milestone will be a soil-movement hearing notice from the borough or a status change on the DEP permit. Either one would show up in public records before any ribbon-cutting announcement.

Changes like a new anchor tenant on Chestnut Ridge Road can affect how buyers see a part of town, and we follow those changes closely. If you'd like to know what your Montvale home could be worth while the project moves through permitting, Sara Deutsch and Team Deutsch can put together a valuation based on current local sales. Get Your Home Value.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.