The busy year continues for the Plaza at Cherry Hill center (next to Cherry Hill Mall) who will see the 2nd Ave Thrift Superstore open in July, the Sam Ash music store has started their Going Out of Business sale, and it appears that Pure Hockey is relocating within the center.
Add these changes to the opening last year of the much larger and feature packed Total Wine store… well the team at shopping center owner Urban Edge is keeping busy.
The Plaza at Cherry Hill is located adjacent to the Cherry Hill Mall on Route 38. The multi-building property features ALDI Grocery, Guitar Center, Esporta fitness, Raymour and Flanigan, Chuck E Cheese and more.
2nd Ave Thrift Superstore
2nd Ave. Thrift Superstore is taking over the leftmost unit of the L-shaped shopping center… a unit which most recently was Today’s Man which I believe means the space has been empty for over 20 years!
42Freeway and others originally reported the store as “savers” but that is also the parent company name and they have several brands. For the Cherry Hill (and Voorhees) new locations they have chosen 2nd Ave Thrift Superstore, which matches the brand of their existing Pennsauken location.
Similar to other thrift stores, you are able to browse the merchandise and purchase slightly used items at significant discounts. Since the merchandise starts with ever changing donations, many customers returning again and again to see what’s new in the store.
One thing that sets 2nd Ave Thrift apart from others is the size of the stores… they are LARGE!
2nd Ave. Thrift superstore also has a unique model of being a for-profit thrift store, but they help out nonprofit organizations by purchasing the goods that those organizations collect.
For example, in New Jersey they list the Military Order of the Purple Hearts Service Foundation as a non-profit partner. When you donate your goods to the Purple Hearts, there’s a chance that some of your items are sold to 2nd Ave Thrift who in turn sell the merchandise to customers in their stores!
It’s a win-win-win because the charities earn revenue which can then be used for services to support those in need. Plus it reduces items being thrown away into landfills.
Specific to the Cherry Hill location, I stopped in about a week ago and chatted with some of the on-site staff.
At the time the store looked complete from a construction sense and had all of the shelving in place, but there was no product in the store.
And finally to the point I was told that they are targeting a July 11th opening date.
They are also working on a location in Voorhees which I would bet opens around the same time although I haven’t been able to confirm that date. Both Voorhees and Cherry Hill have job offerings online ahead of the store openings (Savers.com Careers)
Sam Ash Closing -– Store Closing Sales
After 100 years of serving musicians with top quality products at great prices, Sam Ash announced on May 2nd it is closing all stores.
The Plaza at Cherry Hill is home to one of the Sam Ash locations, and in my visit a week ago the signage is up for the store closing sales.
Absolutely the inventory levels seemed lower but there was still a significant amount of product available throughout the store.
That being said many of the products that I think people would show a big interest in such as PA equipment, mixers and musical instruments were priced with discounts of only around 5%.
Smaller items such as headphones were priced at 30% off.
Look, I’ll jump in and add a rare personal opinion here… for me if I’m looking at a $2,500 mix board or $550 Instrument, I’m going to need more than a 5% discount to buy from a company who is going out of business.
So of course this starts the consumer game where obviously over time those discounts will get deeper and deeper, and you have to decide at what point to buy to get a good discount while they still have inventory on hand.
Guitar Center is still open in the same shopping center.
Pure Hockey – Unit Relocation?
Pure Hockey is located in the separate cluster of buildings in the Plaza at Cherry Hill center, in a location which about 15 years ago was Tower Records!
If you’ve never been there before you’ll basically be shocked to see how large the store is for a product line that is literally just focused on hockey!
An interesting sidenote is if you visit the store and take a look around, all of interior wall separations and even the round lighting fixture in the center of the store were all done when Tower Records was open! The front glass still has a slot built into it for a DVD-rental return slot. Or was that VHS?!
Well things are still going well for Pure Hockey but it seems they are interested in relocating to another unit within the shopping center.
The leasing company for the center shows an updated site plan dated last year… With Pure Hockey relocating to the former Total Wine location in the inside corner wedge next to Sam Ash.
Well to be clear it appears the former Total Wines location would be split in half, and Pure Hockey would be taking one of those segments.
In chatting with a few folks at the store, it was mentioned that the current location does not have a rear delivery area so large product deliveries are brought in the front entrance and left on the stores main sales floor until the staff has a chance to break things down! With the new location (if it happens), they would pick up a rear delivery area.
I tried reaching out to the shopping center owner today and at 1:30 pm I could not get an answer from any of the published phone lines.
Links and Locations
Savers – Thrift Store Cherry Hill (July 11th)
The Plaza at Cherry Hill
2100 Route 38
Cherry Hill, NJ