Sprouts Farmers Market has two Gloucester County locations “in the works” with West Deptford construction started, and Washington Twp expecting full County approval by the end of summer (with construction likely starting after that).
In this article I discuss the current project statuses, but to explain that… I find myself delving into a “Project Approval Primer” commentary!
The West Deptford location is being developed at the Southwood shopping center on Route 45 (Mantua Pike), and the Washington Township location is planned for an undeveloped lot on Egg Harbor Road adjacent to the Harbor Place shopping center (Rita’s Water Ice).
“Sprouts” is a large and quickly growing premium natural/healthy/organic grocery with over 400 locations in the United States as of mid-2024.
Sprouts states that 90% of their 19,000 products they sell are natural or organic… and they also carry a large selection of gluten free products.
In offering a well-rounded shopping experience each store includes a fresh deli, full butcher shop, bakery, fresh fruit section and even a full array of personal care products including a significant selection of nutritional supplements.
In September of last year they opened a location in Westmont Haddon Township and several years prior opened in Marlton.
The Marlton location was developed with the original larger store design of 33,000 square feet.
With expansion and customer convenience on their minds, Sprouts has switched to a smaller format store of around 23,000 square feet for new developments… which is what the Haddon Township location opened as, and also is the planned size for West Deptford and Washington Township.
Like many national retailers, Sprouts has a standard store design and footprint they like to use, which keeps the store experience consistent and development costs down. I’ve seen plans for both West Deptford and Washington Township Sprouts stores, and what I saw shows that both stores are effectively the same interior design but with some changes to accommodate the particular site locations.
You would then think all locations are the same…
Sprouts West Deptford
I’ll start with the West Deptford location because it is furthest along in the development cycle, which is most likely attributed the fact is being developed in an existing shopping center which reduces design and approval aspects.
I’ll discuss more on “approvals needed” details under the Washington Township section, but simply because the West Deptford Sprouts project is being developed in a small portion of an already developed shopping center (Southwood), and is not changing any of the access points to County or State Highways, it mostly only needed approval from West Deptford to start construction… which can significantly reduce development timelines.
West Deptford approved plans for their Sprouts back in February of this year, and 6 to 8 weeks later crews were already on site demolishing the older segment of the shopping center that the Sprouts will replace.
Now we’re in the third week of July and in my visit just a few days ago I could see that the property was completely cleared and leveled, and effectively construction has started as a concrete team is on site working on the foundation concrete, for what will become the exterior walls of the Sprouts grocery.
The exterior trench has been mostly dug and it appears workers are preparing forms for the concrete to be poured into.
When I wrote about the approval on March 1st I had been told by the owners of Southwood Shopping Center that Sprouts they were expecting a Spring of 2025 opening, and I see no reason at this point why that would change.
Sprouts Washington Township – A Project Approval Primer
I’ve been getting many messages about the status of the Washington Township Sprouts project as the public has been aware of it for over a year, and to date nothing has happened at the wooded site on Egg Harbor Rd.
A few things to note:
The Washington Township Sprouts project is being planned on a completely undeveloped wooded lot, which means the Egg Harbor Road located project requires a much more extensive site plan design including an all new parking lot, traffic movements, exterior lighting, and approved access to local roadways.
The town approval of a new construction project is absolutely the most important, but in many cases there are additional government agency approvals that are required such as the NJ-DEP, State of New Jersey or the appropriate County. As an example, for the Washington Township project the developers are working with Gloucester County regarding car access to Egg Harbor Road.
Clearly the town approval is the most important, as the full approval and design of a large project can be very expensive and developers don’t want to dive deeply into those other aspects until they know the town is on board with the project. (Although typically the developer is previewing the project with those other agencies when required)
Also keep in mind the Washington Twp project became public very early in the process back in March of 2023, likely soon after the initial contract agreement was signed. At that point the only thing that probably existed regarding the site plan was just a basic drawing.
So the eight months between the initial announcement of the project, and the first November 2023 Zoning approval is really when the details of the full project design are worked out. Both internally between the developer and Sprouts, but then also in numerous conversations with Washington Township ahead of the formal presentation.
It’s likely that some residents believe that when a developer appears before a town Zoning/Planning board, it’s the first time the town is ever seeing the plans!
The reality is each town has hired a professionally licensed planner to work with developers ahead of the scheduled approval hearings, and for many months (or even years) the project is refined so that it best meets the needs of the project as well as the Town’s Zoning ordinances.
An extra aspect on the Washington Township Sprouts is the November 2023 approval was given for the core project, but there were some last minute questions about the requested signage and instead of further delaying the entire approval, everyone agreed to split the approval process and review the signage and other smaller details at a later date.
So effectively the full project was not approved by Washington Township until April of 2024.
So now finally on to where the project sits today…
Egg Harbor Road is a Gloucester County owned and operated roadway, and when you develop a new project that needs to access a County Road for traffic moving in and out of the site… the County has to approve those access points before the project can start construction.
I already called out that the Washington Township project is more complex than West Deptford, but things get even trickier with the roadway access to Egg Harbor Road.
There is an existing traffic signal at the Egg Harbor & Salina Road intersection that currently has three access points in-and-out of the intersection.
Everyone agreed that for the Sprouts project, the smartest decision was to utilize that existing traffic signal intersection, and have the access point into the Sprouts parking lot become the fourth intersection path.
But then this creates interesting design considerations because you just can’t build this 4th access point into the traffic light intersection without considering impacts on the other 3 existing roadway paths!
For example, cars on Egg Harbor Road are going to want to make turns into the new shopping center parking lot. Traffic exiting the Sprouts parking lot are going to want to move on to any of the three directions. Does this mean dedicated turn lanes? Wider roadway areas?
So simply while I don’t know all the details of those conversations, I am aware that things are much more complex with this level of road access requirements.
According to County documents, the project was last formally reviewed by the County in March of 2024 and was denied at that time. (To be clear, that denial simply means there is more work to be done in defining the roadway access, and is not related to a full project approval).
That being said I have been told by two different people on the project side of the effort that ongoing discussions with the county engineers continue, they feel they are on the same page with the final changes… and they expect to have a County approval by the end of this summer.
I know people want dates but all I can say is construction would likely start soon after that final approval but at this point no one is offering any dates on this project, as they are focused on just getting all their approvals signed sealed and delivered
Links and Location
Sprouts Farmers Market Washington Township
288 Egg Harbor Road
Washington Township NJ 08080
Sprouts Farmers Market West Deptford
875 Mantua Pike
West Deptford NJ