Joann Fabrics has signed a lease to move into the long closed Babies R Us property in Deptford, on Clements Bridge Road.
The extended building is home to Forman Mills on the opposite end. McDonald’s, Boston Market and Taco Bell are all located in the centers parking area along Hurffville Road.
In recent years this property has been used as a Halloween store.
And yes, there already is a Joann Fabric store in Deptford over by Marshall’s and TJ Maxx… and at this time we can only assume that Joann Fabrics is looking to relocate that store.
Reasons could be better visibility in the Babies R Us location, and also a larger size.
Which brings us to an interesting twist on this seemingly simple store relocation.
Below is the current Deptford Joann Fabrics store, from 2019. It’s a smaller footprint and could use some love.
Joann Fabrics Superstore?
The Babies R Us building is a much larger property than the current Joann Store… approximately 40,000 sq ft total.
While its not 100% clear if they are taking over the entire property (indications are they are), the square footage would put the Deptford location in Joann’s Superstore category, similar to their Mt Laurel location.
And with all of that, maybe let’s take a half step back on Joann Fabrics.
Honestly I don’t know much about Joann Fabric stores… but in research it seems they are a LOT more than just fabrics.
Sure fabrics and sewing are their main thing, but when your core focus is targeted at the creative customer base… it only makes sense to offer additional creative category products.
In fact they list their full name as “Joann Fabric and Craft Stores”
A check of the Joann website shows they feature:
- Fabric and sewing supplies
- Home & Decor Items
- Seasonal & Occasion
- Floral
- Paper Crafts
- Craft Machines and Cricut
- Crafts & Hobbies
- Art Supplies and Painting
- Kids and Teachers
- Baking and Kitchen
- And a LOT More.
See? When you start listing things out they start landing much more in the center of the national craft store category! The category of Michaels and Hobby Lobby!
And of course the surrounding Deptford Mall area already has both Michaels and Hobby Lobby! Heck at one time Deptford also had an AC Moore craft store…
… and this new Joann location would be directly next to the former AC Moore location!
All of this further leads me to believe the new Deptford location will be a Superstore, because Joann could have easily just leased the smaller AC Moore store, right?
An added bonus of the Babies R Us property is it is the end unit with the very busy Clements Bridge Road very close, so that extra frontage to the road would be great visibility for the store and it’s signage.
We’ll have to wait and see!
Joann Fabrics: Looking to Move For a Few Years?
We had heard that something was changing with Joann Fabrics but weren’t immediately clear on additional details.
Today what closed the knowledge gap for us is we noticed that Commercial Real Estate company Metro Commercial had updated the Deptford Plaza leasing brochure to clearly show Joann Fabrics as proposed for the property.
The Metro Commercial pdf flyer even includes mockups of the shopping center signage and sitemap!
We also know from other sources that they have moved forward with gaining necessary approvals, so the “proposed” status means “Yeah we are doing this, but we just need the town to approve a thing or two”
Considering the existing building is retail, and the new use is retail… there really aren’t any special approvals needed, unless they are changing up the signage.
The Metro team of Dan and Dave (pdf) are actively looking for the perfect tenant to take over the closed AC Moore building which sits between Forman Mills and the upcoming Joann Fabrics!
Savvy readers of 42Freeway may have wondered “Wait a minute…wasn’t Joann going to move to a different and new center to be developed in Deptford?”
Well yes… back in 2019 we published as story about a then proposed new shopping center which would have been developed next to BJ’s Warehouse club, where the State of NJ currently operates a Highway Maintenance Yard.
That article was just 6-9 months before the Covid pandemic struck in 2020, and while we don’t know the status of that full project, we have heard nothing about it and we can not located details of it online any longer.
It seems though that if that large project was delayed or cancelled, Joann Fabrics had really made up their mind to move out of their current location in Deptford… bringing them to the Babies R Us building.
More on this as we learn more!
Links and Location
Joann Fabrics
Currently: 1800 Clements Bridge Road
Proposed: 1120 Hurffville Rd
Deptford NJ
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