The Market Report

ShopRite of Wayne Hills Owner: Inserra Supermarkets Opened:  October 31, 2021 Previous Tenants:  on site of former Wayne Hills Mall Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location:  30 Wayne Hills Mall, Wayne, NJ Photographed:  December 2021 We arrive at the Wayne Hills Mall in Wayne, NJ to check out the brand-new Wayne Hills ShopRite! As much as I am sad to see the ancient -- and totally unique -- Wayne ShopRite just west on Hamburg Turnpike close up shop, its replacement about a mile and a quarter northwest is beautiful. The 80,000 square foot store is located on what used to be the indoor mall portion of the Wayne Hills Mall, which was demolished. The mall also includes a Burlington Coat Factory to the left of the ShopRite, a vacant Toys R Us and Kmart across the parking lot, and an LA Fitness in a former Pathmark. The ShopRite opened on Halloween 2021. So that means that the ShopRite is bringing some much-needed life to this mall. It does also mean that Plaza ...

Whole Foods Market Opened:  2020 Previous Tenants:  A&P Location:  1204 Preakness Ave, Wayne, NJ Photographed:  July 2020 The Wayne, NJ A&P , a beautifully preserved Futurestore, closed in 2015 with no buyer in the A&P bankruptcy. In 2016, it was announced that the Wayne Natural Food Market was to move into the space, plans that never seemed to materialize. By 2017, The MRKT Square (which I vaguely recall reading was to be the same owners as Wayne Natural Food Market)  was slated to move in , and even began renovations on the exterior, but never completed them and pulled out long before the store opened. The following year, Whole Foods announced intentions to move in, finally opening in October 2020 . I captured the store in progress late in its transition, in July 2020, while Whole Foods was putting the finishing touches on its renovations. Diehard supermarket fans will recognize the Futurestore facade still back there behi...

ShopRite of Wayne Owner:  Inserra Supermarkets Opened:  1970s/80s Previous Tenants:  none Cooperative:  Wakefern Food Corp. Location:  625 Hamburg Tpk, Wayne, NJ Photographed:  June 2016 and July 2020 Today's store tour is just up the street from the former A&P , Stop & Shop , and Corrado's we've seen the past few days, being about a mile and a half east on Hamburg Turnpike. The impending relocation of this 59,000 square foot store to the Wayne Hills Mall (i.e., even closer to the other three) is probably less about the square footage, although the new store will be 20,000 square feet larger. The main problem is that this location is bad, away from the central retail area on Hamburg Turnpike, which is a tertiary retail section anyway (US-46 forms a major retail corridor in Wayne, and NJ-23 is the next largest in town), along with the fact that as we'll see this facility is very outdated. Plus, this store is nearly invisible f...