Sprouts Farmers Market continues it’s South Jersey expansion with an announced signing of a lease at the Southwood Shopping Center on the Mantua Pike (Route 45) in West Deptford.
Sprouts Farmers Market is a healthy grocery store which fits into the premium Whole Foods/Trader Joe’s category, but with their own unique store offerings.
Sprouts offers a full healthy supermarket experience including deli, seafood and meat counters… all in an easy-to-shop footprint. They even make fresh sushi in the store!
The news of the planned Sprouts Farmers Market comes from Vantage Commercial, whose Director of Client Services Corinne Giletto worked with Sprouts and the Southwood Shopping Center local investment team to bring the deal together.
For West Deptford’s Southwood Shopping Center, Sprouts will be located at the far right of the shopping center in an area which was most recently an ALDI grocery, but… that existing section of the building will be demolished and a brand new 23,252 sq ft Sprouts will be developed!
As part of the Sprouts signing, a previously announced full remodeling of the shopping center will take place at the same time. (October 22, 2022). Vantage Commercial states, “The investment group will deliver a completely remodeled center, to transform Southwood Shopping Center into a Class A retail center”
Southwood has had several exciting new tenant openings recently, and once the construction efforts are completed, the 60+ year old Southwood Shopping Center will return to being a popular retail destination for the area… with Sprouts as the lead anchor tenant, and a beautiful new façade remodel!
For Sprouts, it would seem they were attracted to the property because of the great location, which is surrounded by denser residential communities.
Sprouts will clearly be a big “foot traffic” source for the shopping center, and there are still additional spaces available to lease if you are interested in joining what will soon become a showpiece shopping center for the well traveled Route 45 commercial corridor.
Towns in the immediate area are West Deptford (of course), Woodbury Heights and Deptford.. but also minutes away are Mantua, Mullica Hill, Wenonah, Woodbury and more.
The residents in the area have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of an organic grocer for many years… We look forward to collaborating with West Deptford, Sprouts, and the local community to revitalize this landmark, which stands as one of the longest-standing retail centers in the area.
Corinne Giletto, Vantage Commercial on Sprouts Farmers Market coming to Southwood Shopping Center, West Deptford NJ
Since this will be a new construction effort the project will need to go through a full approval process from multiple government entities, as well as demolition… all before construction can start. So we likely won’t see an opening until 2025.
Sprouts Farmers Market – Southwood Shopping Center
Sprouts Farmers Market is a healthy grocer offering a unique open design with fresh produce as a core aspect of the store.
That being said they offer a full grocery experience in a smaller footprint, also offering a familiar perimeter counter experience with full deli, meat and seafood counters… as well as a large focus on organic, plant based and gluten free products.
For South Jersey, Sprouts has open locations in Marlton and Haddon Township, and recently a location was approved for Washington Township. It is expected that both Washington Twp and West Deptford stores will be developed.
I have visited the Marlton and Haddon Township locations multiple times and found that the stores are a very pleasant shopping experience with an open floor plan, and a full variety of everything you would need for your household shopping needs… with a focus on healthy!
While Sprouts is clearly in the category of other premium grocery stores such as Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods… they have their own unique game plan which makes them stand out in the category.
In terms of square footage a typical new Sprouts store is about 50% larger then a Trader Joe’s… as Sprouts supports additional “supermarket like” offerings that you don’t find in Trader Joe’s, Aldi or LIDL. But then a Sprouts store is not as large as a Whole Foods location or traditional supermarket.
For Sprouts, it’s a balance of store size and features which will enable them to expand into more market, offering local communities a full-featured yet healthy grocery shopping experience.
And it’s clear that Sprouts is looking to grow… and has their eye on the Philadelphia/South Jersey market.
The recently opened Haddon Township store was celebrated as the grocer’s 400th location!
Recent articles at the Philadelphia Business Journal and Philly Voice state that Sprouts has six new stores planned for the Philadelphia region… and it’s not clear to me if that number includes West Deptford and Washington Township, which are still to be developed.
I was there for the early September Grand Opening of the Haddon Township Sprouts Farmers Market. Not only did I tour the store and share the experience with readers… it was also nice to meet some of regional sprouts management, as well as a key member of their extended real estate team.
I published an article about my experience in the brand new Haddon Township Sprouts Farmers Market store and you can read that here. But I’ll add here that…
Sprouts is healthy and organic, but they also want support your full grocery shopping needs.
The design of the store layout is clever in that while they offer a full shopping experience, it is not as large as a “supermarket”, and at no time do you feel closed-in by massive aisles. The goal at Sprouts is to keep the entire experience open, bright, and colorful… and again with the focus on fresh products.
Fresh produce, meats, seafood and more… they even have a large section of “pay by weight” bulk goods with fresh products such as fresh coffees, trail mixes and snacks, and variety of nuts.
As expected they also have aisles for refrigerated and frozen sections!
Following the healthy theme, Sprouts also gives a decent allocation of floor space to vitamins and healthy supplements. For the Haddon Township location opening, I saw that they were hiring employees specifically for that vitamin section… to have employees trained to be well informed on the benefits of each product.
It’s an exciting signing for the Southwood Shopping center and the community.
Links and Location
Sprouts Farmers Market – Proposed
875 Mantua Pike
West Deptford NJ
Southwood Shopping Center
Leasing Contact
Corinne Giletto : Vantage Commercial
Sprouts