A Classic/Legacy Wawa located on Route 70 Cherry Hill at the front of the Kingston neighborhood (and across from Barclay Farms) is expected to close on October 7th, according to employees at the store.
Plans originally were to replace this legacy store with a new Super Wawa which was to have been built directly across Route 70 in the Barclay Farms Shopping Center. Those plans were withdrawn after significant opposition from locals. (70and73.com)
With the upcoming closing of this Route 70 Wawa, this leaves residents of the Barkley-Kingston neighborhoods without a Wawa convenience store in the immediate Route 70 area. Ten years ago another legacy Wawa closed on Route 70 about a 1.25 miles away at the Cooper Landing Road Intersection.
That being said there are other Wawa options in the area including stores on Haddonfield Road, Route 38 at the “Church Road” Circle, and Route 70 East of Route 295.
This closing Kingston Wawa location is one of the rapidly dwindling number of original “classic” designs, which are a smaller sized store that do not offer gas station pumps.
Just a few decades ago these smaller legacy stores dotted neighborhoods all over South Jersey, but Wawa has been replacing most with larger Super Wawa’s with gas station… or simply closing them
There are still some legacy stores operating in the Wawa brand. It seems that the locations where Wawa has decided they will be keeping them operating (Usually due to lack of available space for the development of a larger Wawa) the Company had already fully remodeled and modernized those stores. Two locations in Washington Township for example, were completely remodeled about a few years ago.
I do not know the plans for this particular Wawa property and building. Typically they’ve been sold to other business owners or investors and reopen as new businesses. For example the former Wawa at Cooper Landing Rd is home to Mango Mango dessert shop.
For this Route 70 legacy Wawa store… it clearly had been left in an older state in need of upgrades, which for the longest time made sense considering there had been active plans to develop a replacement Wawa across the street.
But now it’s been almost two years since the plans for a new Barclay Farms Super Wawa were withdrawn, and with no upgrade activity having taken place at the legacy Wawa… likely employees and some locals had already started wondering about the fate of the legacy store.
Route 70 Road Construction Impacting Many Businesses
Another possible factor in the closing could be the ongoing reconstruction project of Route 70 which still has about 2 1/2 years left in its construction plans. Significant construction, lane changes and less than perfect road conditions has seemed to negatively impact some businesses.
To be clear while this has not been stated for the Wawa store, locals and Route 70 business owners have been complaining about the challenges of the road construction project.. which is deterring commuters and customers from traveling the roadway… and impacting sales.
Joe Croce of Croce’s Pasta told KYW earlier this year that the construction had definitely hurt his business. “Not even the [Corona] virus hurt me like it, you know.”
Croce is moving on the offensive and opening a second location far away from Route 70… in another County! The family has announced that they are opening in Glassboro, taking over the former Peter & Sons sandwich shop on Delsea Drive.
Last week I spoke to Kris Noyes who owns an Oreck Vacuum Store on Route 70 Cherry Hill, who is closing his Cherry Hill Route 70 store and focusing on his Washington Township location.
Kris states at one time the Cherry Hill location was the number one Oreck store in the Country, but the loss of customers due to the road project has lead him to close his Cherry Hill store.
Wawa Barclay-Kingston?
Wawa store employee tells me that with so many Wawas in the South Jersey area all of the employees will still have jobs within the company. Some roles may be temporarily adjusted.
At this point I don’t have any details regarding what the plans are for the classic building, or if Wawa is still looking for locations to develop a new Super Wawa in the Barclay-Kingston area.
Consider that this is a highly developed area already filled with homes and commercial developments, so with the Barclay Farms Wawa project withdrawn it likely makes it tough for Wawa to find another replacement location large enough to suit the larger super Wawa stores and gas pumps.
