With almost 1,000 new US stores opened in fiscal year 2023, Dollar General continues to make South Jersey a prime growth area with locations opening soon in Washington Township (Sewell), Glendora and Williamstown.
The Washington Township location on Fish Pond Road, as well as the Williamstown project on the Black Horse Pike… are both all-new construction efforts which obviously have a longer lead time.
The recently announced location for Glendora takes over a former Walgreens pharmacy on the Black Horse Pike. While the Glendora location was announced only six weeks ago, because it’s a more simple retrofit of an existing building we likely will see it open before the summer is out.
The Fish Pond Road location has been getting all of the attention from 42Freeway readers as that store appears to have been ready to open for several weeks, and inventory has been on shelves for at least three weeks… and it still does not have a set opening date, although it is expected to be soon.
Dollar General – Fish Pond Road
Back in October of 2021, 42Freeway shared the news of plans for a Dollar General to be developed on Fish Pond Road in the Sewell section of Washington Township.
The property is close to the corner of Pitman Downer Road and was previously home to several auto based businesses.
Two years later in November of 2023, construction crews arrived on site to start the process of clearing the lots and demolishing the existing buildings.
Recently, for likely more than a month now the core building structure appears to have been complete, and since at least the end of May employees have been in the building and the shelves are fully stocked.
To me this is an indication that the building was given a Certificate of Occupancy from Washington Township, otherwise those employees and the inventory would have not been allowed in the building.
Interestingly, while the store is clearly not open for business the location page at the Dollar General site has been showing the location as open for several weeks. When I reached out to Dollar General Customer Service (Phone) they told me the Fish Pond Road location of Dollar General opened on June 3rd!
I had to be the one to tell them the Sewell location was in fact.. not open.
In additional email communications with their media/public relations team, Dollar General acknowledged the location is not open and stated that they are still waiting for the receipt of needed permits and approvals. Once they are received, the location is expected to open within that following week.
So as of yesterday afternoon there is still is no set date for the opening of the Fish Pond Road Dollar General.
Regarding the inventory, I had an unofficial conversation with a Dollar General employee who told me they have already started the process of discarding or donating food items which have approaching expiration dates!
Clearly Dollar General Fish at Pond Road thought they would’ve opened three weeks ago.
I do not know the exact cause for the delay of the store opening… But I can say that the required related roadway improvements were not completed until about two weeks ago, and honestly that construction effort didn’t start until after employees were already inside the building.
Fish Pond Road is a Gloucester County managed roadway and as part of the full approval it appears the developer was required to add curbing and sidewalks as expected, but they also were required to widen a segment of Fish Pond Road in front of the store and further up the roadway, in front two other adjacent commercial properties.
This widening was done in order to give cars entering the Dollar General parking lot wider roadway space to decelerate off to the side of Fish Pond Road before turning in to the store parking lot.
Last week I was on site when an inspector was parked in the parking lot working on notes as he sat in the driver’s seat of his pickup truck. Honestly I was hoping that meant the Fish Pond Road Dollar General would open this week!
Dollar General – Williamstown
In April of 2023 I wrote about plans for an all new Dollar General location to be developed in Williamstown along the Black Horse Pike. The 1.4 acre property is located across from the Estate at Monroe banquet hall.
Considering that approval was really just a year ago this project is seeing considerable progress… and in fact the core exterior of the building including rooftop air conditioning and front design elements are all in place.
The parking lot curbing has been poured, but the project driveway has not been connected to the Black Horse Pike.
It appears that Dollar General has two main design footprints for new development projects, which is simply rotating the building 90 degrees.
This Williamstown location is configured “wide front” with the entrance door in the middle of the long wall… similar to the newer Deptford Delsea Drive store. Meanwhile the new Sewell location I just wrote about is configured “narrow front”
At this time despite considerable progress there’s no real expected opening date for this Williamstown store (shared with me at least). But I think it’s safe to say this new Williamstown store will open this year, and likely early Fall?
Dollar General – Glendora, Gloucester Township
Just six weeks ago I broke the news that Dollar General was taking over a former Walgreens in the Glendora section of Gloucester Township.
The location is on the Black Horse Pike at the Evesham Road intersection. 42Freeway stopped by recently to check out progress.
And what a huge difference it makes to find an existing quality building at a great intersection, that with some basic upgrades and signage is ready to go.
In just six weeks this Glendora location already has signage up, shelving and inventory is going in, and and a very unofficial date of around August 1st was stated!
Many readers commenting on the initial 42Freeway story when I shared to Facebook, called out that it’s in very close proximity to a newer Dollar General located just a mile away on the Clements Bridge Road in Runnemede.
The reader expectation is “how can the two of the same stores be successful, located so close to each other?”
Well the first aspect is Dollar General has positioned itself somewhat in a convenience store model where the idea is to be close to the customers, so that customers will hop in their car and drive over to pick things up.
If the stores are too far away from people, they’re going to shop elsewhere and likely go online.
Additionally while there’s obviously rent being paid by Dollar General for the former Walgreens building, when you consider the minimal amount of investment it took to convert this store to a Dollar General (signage and shelving) and load it up with inventory… which is already sitting in their massive distribution warehouses… Well, it’s really a no brainer for Dollar General to take over this location.
Links and Locations
Dollar General Fish Pond (Coming Soon)
279 Fish Pond Road
Sewell NJ
Dollar General – Williamstown (Coming Soon)
1380 N Black Horse Pike
Williamstown NJ
Dollar General Glendora NJ (Coming Soon)
1301 Black Horse Pike
Glendora NJ