A quick Cherry Hill Route 70 “Retail Rundown” with the new small-format Macy’s store opened this weekend at the Garden State park complex. Next door at the Garden State Pavilions, discount retailer Gabe’s is closing… but coming soon are Rally House and Five Below.
Cherry Hill just does things differently than the rest of South Jersey. While most communities seem to only get discount retailers… here we have Cherry Hill with an unfortunate closing of Gabe’s discount store, but gaining a premium brand store with its second Macy’s location.
That’s a second Macy’s location in the same town… just minutes from each other! Cherry Hill and the surrounding communities have some premium buying power!
Macy’s Small-Format : Cherry Hill
Back in January, 42Freeway broke the news of a second Macy’s location coming to Cherry Hill… which just opened this past weekend at the Garden State Park shopping center (Wegmans Center). They take over the closed Bed, Bath and Beyond location.
As mentioned this is the second Macy’s for the township, with the first (full department store) location in the nearby Cherry Hill Mall. That original location is unaffected by this new opening, and it seems Macy’s is happy to go to market with two stores in Cherry Hill.
This new Route 70 store is a small-format setup which means it’s the full Macy’s shopping experience, just with less square feet.
It’s not an outlet. It’s not a close-out store. It’s a traditional Macy’s shopping experience… just smaller.
In my visit today I could see that all core categories of the brand were represented, from shoes to clothing, a large makeup and perfume section, and even Geoffrey the Giraffe with a collection of toys is represented as part of the Macy’s & Toys-R-Us partnership.
Simply, Macy’s is using their significant sales data analysis of top selling products to define the inventory of the small format stores.
This is the second smaller Macy’s in South Jersey, with a location opened in the Mount Laurel just last month (and 42Freeway was there!)
Both small-format stores feature the same general layout and department location.
Gabe’s Closing – Cherry Hill and Mount Laurel
Gabe’s is a leading off-price retailer selling top brands and more at significant discounts. Consider them in the category of Ross or TJ Maxx.
The closing Cherry Hill location is in the Garden State Pavilions, which is also home to ShopRite and the Burlington store. Locations in Cherry Hill and Mount Laurel are closing.
News of the closings was first published about two weeks ago, and from what I can see Josh at the Patch had the story first back on May 9th after noticing it in New Jersey’s WARN notices (which are required public notices for when New Jersey companies are laying off staff)
About a week later the Courier-Post followed up with their version of the story, adding commentary from Gabe’s Corporate who cited poor sales and consistent losses at the Cherry Hill and Mount Laurel locations.
According to the WARN notice and the mentioned published reports, Gabe’s will close the two locations on August 12th.
Rally House – Garden State Pavilions
Also coming to Cherry Hill in the core retail sector is a second Rally House location, to be located in the same Garden State Pavilions.
I’ve written a lot about Rally House lately as they expand significantly throughout our South Jersey area. They offer local sports team merchandise such as jerseys, T-shirts, hats and even sports giftware products.
Sports fans are drawn to Rally House’s large selection of products… Phillies, Eagles, Sixers, Flyers and more!
This would be the second location for Rally House in Cherry Hill as they also have a location in the nearby mall.
The location for the new Rally House specifically is between the Staples store and 4-Wheel Parts.
I noticed the construction for the upcoming location earlier today, and confirmed it on the shopping center siteplan.
In my visit today I could see that the the entire 5-unit building was getting a complete front facade rebuild, along with the Rally House interior build-out.
Five Below – Garden State Pavilions
Catching up on another story that I missed, another Five Below store is coming to Cherry Hill also, and again in the Garden State pavilions… in that same front building that Rally House is being developed in.
Five below is taking the leftmost unit of the building, which was originally the Petco store location before they relocated to the other side of the tracks, next to Costco.
it does not appear that full development has started on the Five Below buildout just yet.
Popular Facebook page A View From Evesham was the first to find this story and get online back in March (Facebook Post)
in general it’s a shame that Gabe’s is closing, but also if they had stayed around… with the opening of Five Below and Rally House it would have basically filled up the entire shopping center!