The Zallie ShopRite family knows how to celebrate a 50th anniversary, as construction for the all new ShopRite of Cherrywood Plaza in Gloucester Township NJ is targeted to start construction this August!
The project is expected to take approximately 10-12 months to convert the former K-Mart store on Blackwood-Clementon Road into a 90,000sf state-of-the-art supermarket. Opening in 2025 it will offer all of the industry’s latest features (and more) in its modern and customer friendly design.
Also planned for a similar timeframe is a full remodel of the existing West Deptford ShopRite, which they hope to start just a few months later in the early fall. The Zallie ShopRite team is also building a Wine & Spirits store for their Medford location!
And these new efforts are starting right after recently completing several other large projects; a full new-build ShopRite in Woolwich, a full remodel of Glassboro, and a new Wine & Spirits store for West Berlin.
For Zallie it’s a many “10s of Millions” dollar investment in several communities of South Jersey, providing a full supermarket shopping experience to customers, upgraded commercial properties spurring additional commercial development, and employing thousands of South Jersey residents.
Along those lines, the completely new Woolwich ShopRite is celebrating it’s one year anniversary and in June the Zallie team will have a special celebration at the Center Square Road location. Follow along on Facebook for the latest when details are announced.
Recently, I was honored to be invited to meet with the Zallie leadership team at their Gloucester Township Corporate office where I received an update on all of their upcoming plans, to share with readers of 42Freeway.
Zallie ShopRite of Cherrywood Plaza
The upcoming Zallie ShopRite of Cherrywood Plaza will take over the entire former K-Mart space on Blackwood-Clementon Road, creating one of the area’s largest supermarket shopping experiences.
The plans also include a second floor area which will become the new home for the Zallie Corporate offices, which sets the total square footage of the project at 112,000 square feet.
Effectively this new ShopRite buildout is a relocation of the existing smaller Laurel Hill ShopRite which is located on the same highly traveled roadway. When the new Cherrywood location opens, Laurel Hill will close. (It is expected that another business will take over the Laurel Hill property for non-grocery uses, but a tenant has not been secured yet)
And don’t worry, the nearby Chews Landing Road ShopRite is staying open… and in fact it also has seen several recent upgrades including a revamped produce section!
As mentioned, the Cherrywood Plaza project is expected to take 10-12 months to complete, so we should see a Grand Opening around this same time (May/June or earlier) in 2025.
Included in Cherrywood Plaza plans are features such as a hot food bar section from Zallie’s Fresh Kitchen, Indoor Café Seating, International Cheese Department, Wokery & Sushi, Floral & Gift Department, Pharmacy, Dedicated Order Pickup area, and much more.
If you’ve been to the amazing new Woolwich or fully remodeled Glassboro locations… you have a solid understanding of what to expect for the coming soon Blackwood area ShopRite!
They Zallie ShopRite store designs offer the modern supermarket experience that 42Freeway readers are craving.
Zallie ShopRite President Zallie Anthony Massoni (and team) are incredibly excited to bring this new and larger supermarket to the Gloucester Township area… but he also is just as likely to tout their goal of offering customers a full one-stop shopping experience!
And clearly a key focus for Anthony is the Zallie Fresh Kitchen. Everything in the Zallie Fresh Kitchen is “scratch made” from in-house recipes. From fresh store-made meatballs, hand-rolled sushi and catering options, to even smaller yet still very important details such as hand breading all of their chicken tenders… it all provides a value-added and distinct “let’s shop at Zallie’s ShopRite” experience for customers.
In fact for the upcoming Cherrywood location and the West Deptford remodel, Zallie is adding a “Fresh Guacamole Station” where a ShopRite employee will make fresh guacamole in front of you in the store, starting with a fresh avocado right from the produce section.
42Freeway first wrote about the plans for the new Cherrywood Plaza ShopRite back in February of 2022. Since that initial announcement there have been a variety of positive changes to the plans, most significantly increasing the size of the supermarket so that it takes over the entire Kmart property.
In April of this year the Gloucester Township Planning Board approved the plans for the supermarket. With that approval in hand Zallie is wasting no time to get construction crews on site to start the conversion of the blocky old retailer building into a beautiful and modern supermarket experience.
While this technically is a conversion of an existing building structure, it really is more like an all new build out.
For example instead of just painting the existing blocky front wall of the former discount store, Zallie is stripping off the entire front layer and recreating a new multi-tier front facade which will offer two distinctive entrance areas (main entrance and order pickup) as well as plenty of front glass.
Pickups for customer orders and delivery will even have an overhead roof to protect from the elements!
Extending out into the parking lot, it too will be completely redeveloped, reconfigured and repaved to improve traffic flow through the shopping center.
I’ve already called out some of the key features of the upcoming supermarket but it will also include a full deli and sandwich area to go along with the hot food section. An in-house bakery will provide fresh rolls and cakes daily. A separate seafood section will offer the latest catch, as close to being “right off the boat” as possible.
I love the large international cheese section in Glassboro and Woolwich, which also features fresh fruit platters… of course made in store. Heck, I am even impressed by the amount of refrigerator and freezer units they have in their stores!
Honestly… the design seems very similar to the Glassboro remodel so if you want to learn more about what to expect from the Cherrywood Plaza Blackwood upcoming location, you can check my Glassboro experience article out here.
I will be keeping up with the Zallie team over the construction progress and I hope to have several updates for everyone at key milestones.
Zallie ShopRite Upgrades – Other Locations
As mentioned at the start of the article Zallie has several additional projects in the works.
Something I was not aware of until my chat with the team is the ShopRite of Medford will be getting a new Wine & Spirits store, to be developed as a freestanding building in front of the supermarket.
The liquor license comes from the former Indian Chief Tavern which sat in front of the Medford ShopRite. Ten years ago the Zallie’s purchased the property and liquor license. While I have not visited in recent weeks it is my understanding the old tavern building is currently being demolished.
The West Deptford ShopRite will also be seeing a full remodel and upgrade.
Many members of the community have been commenting on this than social media and speculating on the changes!
The Zallie Team tells me that the project will be starting several months after the Cherrywood construction starts, which should put West Deptford remodel starting in the early fall. West Deptford is expected to remain open during the project.
While that is not too far off in the future Zallie is still finalizing all of the details for the remodel… which simply means I’ll be sharing more information with you guys at a later date.
And over at the Chews Landing store, as I mentioned they have recently upgraded the produce section. The core store was “reset” to bring in more items and varieties to the customers, and they are currently working on updating the lighting throughout the store.
Additional upgrades are planned for other locations and I hope to keep up with those updates over time.
Links and Locations
ShopRite of Cherrywood Plaza (Construction Starting This Summer)
1468 Blackwood Clementon Rd
Clementon, NJ 08021