Another Target, Whole Foods Market could be coming to Montgomery County
TOWAMENCIN — Redevelopment of a long-vacant shopping center in Towamencin could — emphasis on “could” — happen soon.
Developer Mark Nicoletti gave an update Wednesday on the long-discussed Towamencin Shopping Village center, dropping two major names and answering skeptical residents who have heard similar promises for nearly a decade.
“I am really excited tonight to talk about a new development. In December, we signed a lease with Whole Foods. That’s a pretty big deal,” he said.
“The reason I didn’t come in last month was because we were in the final steps of signing another major agreement, and we did that a couple weeks ago with Target. Target’s gonna go on the land in between the SKF office building, and the shopping center. This is a big deal, and certainly a long time coming,” Nicoletti said.
Located on the southwest corner of the intersection of Forty Foot and Allentown roads, the former Towamencin Village Shopping Center has been a topic of lengthy discussion since the early 2010s, as longtime fixtures there have shuttered and the developer has promised several plans that failed to materialize.
A Genuardi’s supermarket at the shopping center closed in 2010 and in 2022 the developer hinted at a new grocery tenant, heavily speculated to be Amazon Fresh, before that company cancelled all plans for similar stores nationwide.
Developer Nicoletti and his firm PSDC have also pushed other projects throughout the center, including a new Planet Fitness gym that opened in summer 2021, a new Chipotle and Mattress Warehouse on a pad site that formerly housed a Boston Market that was approved in March 2022, and façade upgrades to the rest of the center.
“We can talk about the setbacks we had with the pandemic, we can talk about setbacks we’ve had with higher interest rates. That doesn’t matter to you. You just want to see the shopping center come back. We are right at the precipice of seeing that happen,” Nicoletti said.
Residents have questions
As he spoke, residents took turns passing around a microphone to grill the developer on specifics, including whether the new Target would need access from Reinert Road at the rear of the site. Nicoletti said it would not, but would have access via a new driveway running from Forty Foot Road across from Newbury Way, where PSDC contributed toward the costs of installing a new traffic light, and where a driveway apron for a new signal exists now.
“Our family donated $850,000 a few years ago, to help the township get a grant to widen Forty Foot Road. We’re business people, but we’re stakeholders. We knew that was going to be good for our shopping center, but we also recognized that there was a real benefit, and hopefully earned a little goodwill with that,” he said.
Resident Jenn Foster asked if both Whole Foods and Target were contingent on each other, and Nicoletti said a lease is now signed with Whole Foods that is contingent on Target also committing, and a letter of intent is signed with Target with “some conditions we have to work though — but we’re close.”
Foster then asked if Whole Foods would move into the former Genuardi’s site that has largely been left open and vacant, saying it’s “probably a nature preserve by now,” and pointed out that the developer had said the Chipotle would be arriving soon as far back as 2021.
“Would you believe we’ve taken all that time to get our permits from the county? Not the township, the county,” Nicoletti said. Foster replied, “No, I would not believe that, but if you’re saying it, fine.”
Getting a tune-up
Façade improvements throughout the rest of the center have been done “on spec, hoping we’d get tenants,” the developer said, and fresh paving and landscaping could be seen during a visit to the center this week. Finishing the front of the grocery area itself, Nicoletti said, “we have to wait, because they’re going to want a custom design.”
“We prepared what they call the core and shell, and we’re waiting for another food market deal, because every food market has their own unique design for the front of the building,” he said.
“Two of the strongest retailers in the country have validated Towamencin. They both have signed contracts saying ‘We will come here, if you can figure out these issues,’” Nicoletti said.
Gisela Koch then asked for an answer to “her question, which you didn’t actually answer: is it going to take another three to four years to get permits for these businesses to open?” The developer answered that it “may take a couple of years,” and said the two were welcome to visit the Montgomery County Conservation District and/or PennDOT offices “and ask why it took a year and a half to get our PennDOT approvals for the Chipotle.”
Construction on the combined Chipotle and Mattress Warehouse should start “any minute,” the developer said, and on a visit this week construction fencing could be seen surrounding that pad site, with construction equipment nearby.
Another resident asked about the size of the former Genuardi’s space, and Nicoletti said it was roughly 43,000 square feet, and enough for the new tenant.
“Whole Foods can fit in the existing Genuardi’s box,” he said, and the Target would be roughly 128,000 square feet.
Supervisors Chairman Chuck Wilson asked about the smaller pad sites along Forty Foot Road, and Nicoletti said the developer is in talks with Panera, which was publicly named in 2022, about a pad site on the right corner of the planned driveway leading from the intersection of Forty Foot and Newbury.
“We should have those permits in the next few months and would start construction after that,” he said.
Also in the works
Wilson asked if the developer was in talks about any other pad sites, and Nicoletti said talks are ongoing with “a national bank” about another pad site near the SKF building, and in talks with First Watch, a national breakfast restaurant chain with another location on Bethlehem Pike in Montgomery Township.
The board chairman then asked about SKF itself, and Nicoletti said SKF has informed PSDC that they’re “moving out in May, that entire building is going to be vacant.” The developer recalled the ribbon cutting for that building, deemed the first LEED platinum certified office building in Pennsylvania when it opened in 2010, and said shifts in office space due to firms now working from home would make finding a similar user difficult.
“Are we concerned that we lost the tenant that takes the whole building? Damn right we are, that’s a serious problem. But the work that we’re doing now, to bring back the shopping center, helps us attract new tenants,” he said.
Koch asked about the restaurant pad site closest to the corner of Allentown and Forty Foot, and Nicoletti said that would likely be easier to market once the main tenants are in.
“Something will work there, but we’ve gotta get our anchor going, to get those two sites going,” he said.
Target specifics
Supervisor Kofi Osei asked several questions about the planned Target, referencing an online marketing listing and rendering posted last week on several local Facebook groups showing the Target behind the SKF building, in roughly the same location where age-restricted residential housing had been proposed in a 2018 version of the plan.
“There’s a lot of impervious surface there, especially as the SKF lot isn’t being used. Is there any opportunity to not pave more than you need, until that building gets filled?” Osei said.
Nicoletti answered that the developer has “consistently never asked for waivers on imperious coverage,” and Osei replied that he thought additional new paving “seems kind of unnecessary.”
“It’s too soon for me to comment on how much parking we’re going to end up with,” the developer answered.
Later this week, he added, PSDC is meeting with a family that lives in a house on Tomlinson Road behind the shopping center, that has lived there for three generations but currently live out of state, to discuss the developer buying the house and donating part of the property to the township.
“We’re getting the house so we can have access off of Tomlinson (Road), and parking for people that go to the park,” he said, referring to the Veterans Park on Allentown Road just west of the rear of the shopping center.
“We would donate whatever land we need to, to be able to give the township the access off of Tomlinson,” he said.
Heard all this before
Lori Morrissey said she was “really thrilled” to hear the presentation, but “a little bit skeptical that anything will come of it, because we’ve listened to this for ten years.” She then cited headlines in The Reporter from as far back as 2015 from Nicoletti seeking a zoning change for an entertainment overlay district meant to spur development, and asked the board to “hold this developer to do something with the disgraceful amount of derelict properties in this township.”
“Mr. Nicoletti, and PSDC: Please come through. Please do what every other town around us is doing, and that’s providing the residents with places to go, and things to do,” she said.
Tina Gallagher asked if anything was “impeding development” to get stores into the shopping center, and compared it to similar projects in other nearby municipalities. Nicoletti answered that when his company bought the shopping center from an online auction, “there were just too many supermarkets” in the nearby area, but population growth and the widening of Forty Foot may have changed those calculations.
“That’s how we got Amazon Fresh: when they bailed, Amazon was still at the table, they own Whole Foods. So we worked them, and made a really good deal, and now we have them at the table,” he said.
Morrissey asked if the Planet Fitness already drew enough traffic to the shopping center to be considered an anchor, and the developer said they did not.
“Planet Fitness hasn’t paid rent since they opened. We did everything we could to get them in the center, and they haven’t paid one nickel in rent. That lease we gave them is one of the most discounted deals that they have right now, just to get some tenant in that center. Well, we got a tenant,” he said.
One last question: will the township hear more from the developer soon?
“We’re going to be in here almost every month now with updates,” on the shopping center and other PSDC projects, he said.
Towamencin’s supervisors next meet at 7 p.m. on March 20 at the township administrating building, 1090 Troxel Road. For more information visit www.Towamencin.org.
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