Arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby is set to open its first New York City store early next year.

The retailer has agreed to open a nearly 43K SF store at the Staten Island Mall during the first quarter of 2023. The store will open in The Crossing, a strip mall next to the enclosed Staten Island Mall property, a spokesperson said.

The mall is owned by Brookfield Properties, which acquired it when it bought mall giant GGP in 2018. The landlord was represented in-house in the lease by Alex Varon, Brookfield’s senior director of big-box leasing and development. Katz & Associates’ Brian Katz and Daniel DePasquale repped Hobby Lobby.

Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby has more than 900 stores nationwide. Katz & Associates has represented Hobby Lobby for its expansions into Pennsylvania and Florida, and it is helping the retailer’s push into New York City.

“We are actively seeking locations in all of the other boroughs and expect to have more exciting news soon,” Katz said in a statement.

Hobby Lobby is taking over the Staten Island space from Babies R Us, which closed after its parent company Toys R Us filed for bankruptcy before the pandemic. The vacant box has been used by the New York City government as a walk-in vaccine clinic since April.

Chain retailers slowly began returning to New York City in 2021 after years of contraction, according to a December report by the Center for an Urban Future. The fastest growth among the five boroughs occurred in Staten Island, which saw 19 new chain store locations — an increase of 4.5% — in 2021. The ZIP code where the Staten Island Mall sits, 10314, has the second-highest concentration of national chains in the city, behind 10001, which encompasses Hudson Yards, Herald Square and the Manhattan Mall.