Wawa’s Cherry Hill plans scrapped after community outcry
Wawa already has at least a half-dozen stores, most with gasoline service, in Cherry Hill, including two within a mile of each other.
A controversial proposal to build a Wawa with gas pumps at the Barclay Farms Shopping Center on Route 70 in Cherry Hill is dead.
“A lot of us are very happy tonight,” Anne Einhorn, a member of the grassroots group Preserve Barclay, said Wednesday. The group took its name from the tree-lined neighborhood that abuts the center. Both were built in the 1960s.
“It’s fantastic news,” said Eliza Babcock, who serves on the organization’s leadership committee. “Putting a Wawa there would have set a bad precedent.”
Township officials said a representative of the developer, Hortense Associates LP, notified Cherry Hill’s Community Development Department that the proposal was being withdrawn. The developer is affiliated with the Kaiserman Co., a Philadelphia real estate and property management firm that owns the shopping center.
“It’s a win for the neighborhoods and a win for Cherry Hill,” township council president David Fleisher said.
“From the beginning, council was vocal about some of its concerns, and we’re gratified that Wawa recognized that this would not be an appropriate project,” said Fleisher.
“I would hope that the owner and any future developers will be sensitive to the location, and to the proximity of the [site’s] neighbors,” he said.
Neither Kaiserman nor Wawa representatives responded to messages left at their headquarters Wednesday evening.
Wawa would have been a tenant on what is now part of the shopping center’s parking lot, near the site of an office building currently undergoing demolition. The convenience store chain already has at least a half-dozen stores, most with gasoline service, in Cherry Hill, including two within a mile of each other on Haddonfield Road that were built despite fierce community pushback.
Proposed Wawas in suburban areas elsewhere in the Philadelphia region also have been met with opposition.
“I’m kind of surprised the Wawa is being withdrawn,” said Einhorn, who has lived in the Kingston neighborhood across Route 70 from the shopping center for nearly 40 years.
“But I think it was the relentlessness of the community members,” she said. “We would have just continued to fight until the bitter end. Putting a Wawa there is just not acceptable.”
Martha Wright, spokesperson for Preserve Barclay, said she’s ”very pleased” to see the Wawa proposal die and said other options, including additional restaurants, would be a better option.
“The Kaiserman Co. is a family-owned company with a an excellent reputation and a very long-term investment in the center,” she said. “I can’t wait to see what happens next.”
Cosmas Diamantis, Cherry Hill’s director of community development, said the proposal that was withdrawn included 12,000 square feet of new retail space.
“I don’t know what their next step is or what direction they may take for the site,” he said.