A new Super Wawa is under construction in Penns Grove NJ, at the corner of N Virginia Ave. and E Main St.. This property was previously home to an Incollingo’s Market, which closed a year ago in 2022.
Incollingo’s Market is still open in Egg Harbor City.
Rite-Aid also sits at the intersection (opposite corner) and in the immediate area is a Walgreen’s, Family Dollar and TD Bank.
I stopped by this morning at the project site to see workers very actively engaged in the site prep work.
The entire future Wawa property has been fully cleared and workers are laying out curbing ahead of building construction.
A new small retail building was previously completed in the back corner of the property, which is now home to Chinese Hitchen, Giovanni Pizza, and Inky’s Liquors.
These three businesses were tenants in the larger, older shopping center along with the closed supermarket… and as part of the Wawa project the smaller businesses were provided a brand new home at the site.
I had lunch today at Giovanni Pizza (awesome Sicilian slice!) and I was told they moved in to the new building around the end of August.
The third exciting part of this project for Penns Grove is just a few days ago Mayor LaDaena Thomas announced at her Facebook page via a live video stream, that McDonald’s has also signed on to join the project! (Facebook)
Early renderings of the siteplan when they were going for approvals do show a fast food restaurant for the site to be located in front of the new retail store building, but at the time no fast food establishment had been signed on.
There is no siteplan available yet that shows how the property would support a traditional McDonald’s restaurant.
A standard McDonald’s restaurant averages around 4,000 square feet, and in the 2020 Planning Board meeting minutes it states “the final proposal consists of 2,000 sq ft which is projected to be a quick service restaurant”.
42Freeway will be keeping an eye on this development regarding the newly proposed McDonald’s.
But I’ll toss a big “kudos” to the Mayor for keeping the town up to date on projects, as well as being honest and direct to folks commenting and asking questions of her in her Facebook page.
Wawa Penns Grove
Reviewing Penns Grove’s documents available online it appears that Wawa first approached the town in 2019 about the project.
The Wawa developer then appeared before the Penns Grove planning board in 2020 seeking approval for the development.
Incollingo’s Market which was located at the site (with additional stores) remained open until the fall of 2022.
As mentioned the new multi-tenant retail store building is in the back corner of the property furthest from the traffic light intersection, and is now home to the three retail stores which previously were in the older building
The new Wawa is clearly being developed at the intersection side of the property, running along Main St.
According to a site plan that has been circulating, the Wawa configuration will have a more traditional setup with the gas station pumps positioned in front of the store at the corner of the property, and the Wawa convenience store building located behind it.
The Penns Grove planning board meeting minutes from 2020 say that at 5,051 square feet the new Wawa is considered to be the second largest footprint store that they develop.
While there is no timeline for the completion of the project, it is also stated in the minutes that once started they expect the full project to take nine months… which if everything falls into place would put the store opening in summer of 2024.
With the McDonald’s being a very new announcement and also likely requiring planning board approval, I would imagine that that project is much further off in the future… probably 2025 at the earliest and maybe even more likely 2026.
Links and Location
Wawa Penns Grove (Under Development)
1 N Virginia Ave
Penns Grove, NJ 08069