It would be Sheetz’s first outpost in Wawa’s home county.
A Sheetz and Wawa now sit across the street from each other in Limerick Township, Montgomery County.
If approved, the store would be constructed about five miles down the road from Wawa’s corporate headquarters, and across the county from the site of Wawa’s first store, in Folsom.
The Sheetz would be in the Village at Painters’ Crossing shopping center near the intersection of U.S. Routes 1 and 202, according to the application. Sheetz would take over a parcel in the northeast corner of the complex that is currently occupied by a vacant former bank and a closed Carrabba’s Italian restaurant.
Along with Sheetz’s usual offerings of made-to-order food, grab-and-go snacks, and drinks, the outpost would include indoor and outdoor seating, two mobile-order pickup windows, and six gas pumps, according to the application. It would not include a drive-through.
Customers crowd into the indoor dining area at the new Sheetz in Limerick Township that opened last week.
Nick Ruffner, Sheetz public affairs manager, declined to provide additional information about the proposal, saying in a statement that “it is still very early in the process.”
Zoning changes and other approvals would be required before anything is built, Chadds Ford Township solicitor Michael Maddren said. As of Tuesday, Sheetz had only submitted the sketch plan, which was discussed at a planning commission meeting earlier this month, Maddren said.
At the meeting, township officials did not express strong opinions about the sketch, Maddren said: “We need a little more detail.”
Craig Scott (left) of Wayne and Dave Swartz (right) of Collegeville had breakfast at last week’s grand opening of the first Sheetz in the Philadelphia suburbs.
If the Chadds Ford project moves forward, Sheetz could establish a foothold in three of Philly’s four collar counties: Along with its new Limerick, Montgomery County location, Sheetz also has expressed interest in building a store in Chester County.
In the fall, company officials submitted a sketch plan to Caln Township officials, proposing a location at the site of a shuttered Rite Aid on the 3800 block of Lincoln Highway in Downingtown, according to the township website.
After years of Sheetz opening stores in Western and central Pennsylvania, and Wawa expanding closer to Philly, Sheetz and Wawa’s footprints have increasingly overlapped in recent years.
A Wawa opened outside Harrisburg in 2024, marking the chain’s first central Pennsylvania location. It is down the street from a Sheetz.
NEW YORK — Activists planned protests at more than two dozen Target stores around the United States on Wednesday to pressure the discount retailer into taking a public stand against the 5-week-old immigration crackdown in its home state of Minnesota.
ICE Out Minnesota, a coalition of community groups, religious leaders, labor unions, and other critics of the federal operation, called for sit-ins and other demonstrations to continue at Target locations for a full week. Target’s headquarters are located in Minneapolis, where federal officers last month killed two residents who had participated in anti-ICE protests, and its name adorns the city’s major league baseball stadium and an arena where its basketball teams plays.
“They claim to be part of the community, but they are not standing up to ICE,” said Elan Axelbank, a member of the Minnesota chapter of Socialist Alternative, which describes itself as a revolutionary political group. He organized a Wednesday protest outside a Target store in Minneapolis’ Dinkytown commercial district.
Demonstrations also were scheduled in St. Paul, Minnesota, Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, North Carolina, San Diego, Seattle and other cities, as well as in suburban areas of Minnesota, California and Massachusetts. Target declined Wednesday to comment on the protests.
Target first became a bull’s-eye for critics of the Trump administration’s surge in immigration enforcement activity after a widely-circulated video showed federal agents detaining two Target employees in a store in the Minneapolis suburb of Richfield last month. Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos Minnesota, an immigrant-led social justice advocacy organization that is part of the ICE Out Minnesota coalition, said his group is focusing its protests on the Richfield store.
One of the demands of Wednesday’s protests is for Target to deny federal agents entry to stores unless they have judicial warrants authorizing arrests.
Some lawyers have argued that anyone, including U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customers Enforcement agents without signed warrants, can enter public areas of a business as they wish. Public areas include restaurant dining sections, open parking lots, office lobbies and shopping aisles, but not back offices, closed-off kitchens or other areas of a business that are generally off-limits to the public and where privacy would be reasonably expected, those lawyers say.
Target has not commented publicly on the detention of the store employees. CEO Michael Fiddelke, who became Target’s chief executive on Feb. 2, sent a video message to the company’s 400,000 workers two days after a Border Patrol agent and a Customs and Border Protection officer shot and killed Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti on Jan. 24.
Fiddelke said the “violence and loss of life in our community is incredibly painful,” but he did not mention the immigration crackdown or the fatal shootings of Pretti, an ICU nurse at a medical center for U.S. veterans in Minneapolis, and Renee Good, a mother of three fired on in her car by an ICE agent.
Fiddelke was one of 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies who, in the wake of Pretti’s death, signed an open letter “calling for an immediate de-escalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions.”
The protests over its alleged failure to oppose the immigration crackdown in Minnesota come a year after Target faced protests and boycotts over the company’s decision to roll back its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. At the time, critics said the decision marked a betrayal of Target’s retail giant’s philanthropic commitment to fighting racial disparities and promoting progressive values in liberal Minneapolis and beyond.
The retail chain also is struggling with a persistent sales malaise. Critics have complained of disheveled stores that are missing the budget-priced flair that long ago earned the retailer the nickname “Tarzhay.”
While Wednesday’s protests targeted a tiny fraction of the company’s nearly 2,000 stores, the negative attention serves as another distraction from Target’s business, according to Neil Saunders, managing director of the retail division of market research firm GlobalData.
“The agenda has been hijacked by this,” Saunders said. “And it is a bit of a distraction for Target that they’d rather not have.”
In recent days, a national coalition of Mennonite congregations organized roughly a dozen demonstrations inside and outside of Target stores across the country, singing and urging Target to publicly call Congress to defund Immigration and Customs Enforcement among other demands.
A spokesperson for Mennonite Action said the coalition was not formally connected to ICE Out but following the lead of organizers in Minneapolis.
The Rev. Joanna Lawrence Shenk, associate pastor at First Mennonite Church of San Francisco, said the group did not plan any actions on Wednesday but was mapping out weekend singalong events at Targets in a handful of towns and cities, including Pittsburgh and Harrisonburg, Virginia. She estimated that by the end of the weekend more than 1,000 congregation members will have participated.
Shenk noted that the Mennonites sing This Little Light of Mine and other gospel songs and hymns.
“The singing was an expression of our love for immigrant neighbors who are at risk right now and who are also a part of our congregation,” she said. “For us, it’s not just standing in solidarity with others but it’s also protecting people who are vulnerable.”
A final decision had not been made on whether the company would file, according to Bloomberg. As of midday Wednesday, a search for “QVC Group” in online court records did not show any bankruptcy filings.
In September, QVC Group had $6.6 billion in debt and $1.8 billion in cash or cash equivalents, according to its latest earnings report.
A QVC Group spokesperson did not return a request for comment from The Inquirer. On Tuesday, company representatives did not immediately respond to Bloomberg or the Philadelphia Business Journal.
Before consumers could make purchases on laptops and smartphones, the network and its smaller counterpart HSN — which until recently was based in Florida — broadcast on live TV at all hours. Anchors sold a wide array of clothing, electronics, household goods, beauty products, and other wares.
A QVC show is shot at the network’s West Chester studio in this 2019 file photo.
The news of a potential bankruptcy comes after a tumultuous few years.
Around the same time, the parent company rebranded as QVC Group. Executives said they planned to focus more on livestreaming and social-media shopping to keep up with stiff competition from the likes of TikTok Shop.
“Live social shopping is a natural evolution for us,” David L. Rawlinson II, the company’s president and CEO, said in a November 2024 statement. “Our customers are spending dramatically more time on social media, and that is increasingly where they are finding inspiration and shopping.”
David L. Rawlinson II, CEO of QVC Group, is shown in this 2023 file photo.
The strategy did not prove fruitful.
By May, as President Donald Trump’s tariffs took a toll, Rawlinson said the company was taking steps to cut costs and win back customers who were feeling down on the economy. That included an agreement with TikTok that the CEO said would create “the first 24/7 live shopping experience in the U.S.”
Then in August, a company spokesperson announced plans to hire about 250 employees by early 2026. It was not clear Wednesday whether those hires were ever made.
A holiday segment is taped at QVC’s West Chester studio in this 2023 file photo.
A Chapter 11 bankruptcy would not mean the end of QVC.
Chapter 11 is different from Chapter 7, which involves the liquidation of assets. (Iron Hill Brewery closed all restaurants when it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy this fall.)
After filing for Chapter 11 protection, companies usually continue to operate, though they often decide to close locations or downsize in other ways amid the restructuring process.
After decades in business, the expansive store along City Avenue is expected to close in April, according to a Saks Global spokesperson, who said decisions were based on several factors, including store performance and “lease economics.”
Fifty workers at the Bala Cynwyd Saks Fifth Avenue will lose their jobs effective April 11, according to a WARN Act filing with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. Another 155 workers at a Wilkes Barre fulfillment center will be laid off, according to a separate filing.
As part of the company’s restructuring, it will shutter seven other Saks Fifth Avenue stores, including at the American Dream mall in North Jersey, as well as a Neiman Marcus in Boston.
“Saks Global is refining its store footprint to focus on profitable locations with the highest growth potential,” company executives wrote on its website, adding that the nine closures represented “the first phase of this ongoing review.”
The move will make the company “better positioned to deliver exceptional products, elevated experiences and highly personalized service across all channels,” CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck said in a statement.
Over the years, the Saks Fifth Avenue in Bala Cynwyd has become the brand’s only physical outpost in the region. It is referred to as “Saks Philadelphia” on the company’s website, despite being located across the city line in a freestanding building at Bala Plaza.
City Avenue is shown in April 2024. The Saks Fifth Avenue along the busy thoroughfare is closing in April.
Until recently, the longstanding Saks Fifth Avenue appeared primed to be part of the area’s future: In 2024, City Ave District, the nonprofit business development agency that straddles Lower Merion and Philadelphia, reported that business at the store was so strong that it had resisted offers to move to King of Prussia.
Once the Bala Cynwyd Saks Fifth Avenue closes, the nearest location will be in New York.
Saks Global also operates a Neiman Marcus at the King of Prussia Mall, which is not on the list of stores to close.
The Neiman Marcus at the King of Prussia Mall, pictured in 2020, will remain open.
Elsewhere in the country, Saks Global is closing the majority of its standalone Fifth Avenue Club personal styling suites, the company said Tuesday.
In New York, Bergdorf Goodman, which Saks also owns, will remain open.
What Philly-area Saks customers should know
Shoppers walk through Saks Fifth Avenue in New York in January.
Shoppers at the Bala Cynwyd store will no longer be able to buy gift cards in person, according to Saks, and will have 15 days from the start of the closing sale to use existing gift cards.
Items that were bought before the closing sale can be returned or exchanged as usual, the company said, but purchases made during it will be final. Merchandise bought during the closing sale will also be ineligible for return or exchange at stores that are remaining open.
SaksFirst credit cards will still be accepted, according to the company, and customers with those credit cards will still earn points for purchases made in store. Shoppers will no longer be able to make in-person credit card payments or apply for credit cards at the Bala Cynwyd store.
At other Saks locations, including the King of Prussia Neiman Marcus, the company says the customer experience will remain unchanged.
When Justin Burkhardt heard that his neighborhood grocery store was closing, just months after it had opened, he felt a pang of sadness.
The emotion surprised him, he said, because that store was the Northern Liberties Amazon Fresh.
“Amazon is a big corporation, but [with] the people that worked there [in Northern Liberties] and the fact that it was so affordable, it actually started to feel like a neighborhood grocery store,” said Burkhardt, 40, a public relations professional, who added that he is not a fan of Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s billionaire owner.
“I don’t feel bad for Amazon,” said Burkhardt, who spent about $200 a week at Amazon Fresh. “I feel bad for the workers. … I feel bad for the community members.”
Burkhardt said he and his wife have been forced to return to their old grocery routine: Driving 20 minutes to the Cherry Hill Wegmans, where they feel the prices are cheaper than their nearby options in the city.
Last week, signs informed customers that the Northern Liberties Amazon Fresh was permanently closed.
In Philadelphia and its suburbs, many former Amazon Fresh customers are similarly saddened by the closure of neighborhood stores where they had developed connections with helpful workers. Several said they are most upset about the effects on their budgets amid recent years’ rise in grocery prices.
“I wasn’t happy about it closing for the simple fact that it was much cheaper to shop there,” said Brandon Girardi, a 30-year-old truck driver from Levittown (who quit a job delivering packages for Amazon a few years ago). Girardi said his family’s weekly $138 grocery haul from the Langhorne Amazon Fresh would have cost at least $200 at other local stores.
At the Amazon Fresh in Broomall, “they had a lot of organic stuff for a quarter of the price of what Giant or Acme has,” said Nicoletta O’Rangers, a 58-year-old hairstylist who shopped there for the past couple years. “They were like the same things that were in Whole Foods but cheaper than Whole Foods.”
She paused, then added: “Maybe that’s why they didn’t last.”
In response to questions from The Inquirer, an Amazon spokesperson referred to the company’s original announcement. In that statement, executives wrote: “While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion.”
Workers could be seen inside the closed Amazon Fresh in Northern Liberties last week.
What makes a Philly shopper loyal to a grocery store?
Former Amazon Fresh customers say they’re now shopping around for a new grocery store and assessing what makes them loyal to one supermarket over another.
Last week, one of those customers, Andrea “Andy” Furlani, drove from her Newtown Square home to Aldi in King of Prussia. The drive is about an hour round trip, she said, but the prices are lower than at some other stores. Her five-person, three-dog household tries to stick to a $1,200 monthly grocery budget.
As she drove to Aldi, she said, she’d already been alerted that the store was out of several items she had ordered for pickup. That’s an issue Furlani said she seldom encountered at the Amazon Fresh in Broomall, to which she had become “very loyal” in recent years.
“It was small, well-stocked,” said Furlani, 43, who works in legal compliance. “I don’t like to go into like a Giant and have a billion options. Sometimes less is more. And the staff was awesome,” often actively stocking shelves and unafraid to make eye contact with customers.
“Time is valuable to me,” Furlani said. At Amazon Fresh, “you could get in and out of there quickly.”
Shoppers learned how to use the Amazon Dash Cart at an Amazon Fresh in Warrington in 2021.
Girardi, in Levittown, said he is deciding between Giant and Redner’s now that Amazon Fresh is gone. The most cost-effective store would likely win out, he said, but product quality and convenience are important considerations, too.
“We used to do Aldi, but Amazon Fresh had fresher produce,” Girardi said. “I used to have a real good connection with Walmart because my mom used to work there. But I don’t see myself going all the way to Tullytown just to go grocery shopping.”
Susan and Michael Kitt, of Newtown Square, shopped at the Broomall Amazon Fresh for certain items, such as $1.19 gallons of distilled water for their humidifiers and Amy’s frozen dinners that were dollars cheaper than at other stores.
But Giant is the couple’s mainstay. They said they like its wide selection, as well as its coupons and specials that save them money.
“I got suckered by Giant on their marketing with the Giant-points-for-gas discounts. I figured if I’m going to a store I may as well get something out of it,” said Michael Kitt, a 70-year-old business owner who has saved as much as $2-per-gallon with his Giant rewards. “I really at the time didn’t see that much of a difference between the stores.”
How Whole Foods might fare in Amazon Fresh shells
The Whole Foods store on the Exton Square Mall property is shown in 2022.
If any of these local Amazon Fresh stores were to become a Whole Foods, several customers said they’d be unlikely to return, at least not on a regular basis.
Natoya Brown-Baker, 42, of Overbrook, said she found the Northern Liberties Amazon Fresh “soulless,” and she didn’t “want to give Jeff Bezos any more money.” But the prices at Amazon Fresh were so low, she said, that she couldn’t resist shopping there sometimes.
Brown-Baker, who works in health equity,said she came to appreciate that it represented an affordable, walkable option for many in the neighborhood, including her parents, who are on a fixed income.
If a Whole Foods replaces the store at Sixth and Spring Garden Streets, which was under construction for years, Brown-Baker said the area would be “back at square one.”
Burkhardt, who also lives in the neighborhood, noted that Northern Liberties has a mix of fancy new apartment complexes and low-income housing.
“The grocery store should be for everyone,” he said. Whole Foods “doesn’t feel like it’s for the neighborhood. It feels like it’s for a certain class of people.”
A North Jersey developer has plans to finally transform the long-dead Echelon Mall, saying he’d spend more than $250 million to create a “regional destination” with high-end restaurants, entertainment venues, sports retailers, housing, and perhaps even an “upscale supermarket.”
“We’re going to try to make it Voorhees’ main street” inside the old mall building, said George Vallone, president of the Hoboken Brownstone Co. “Just sort of reinvent the whole thing.”
But Vallone said his plans aren’t set in stone: The revitalization of the former mall, now called the Voorhees Town Center, depends on whether Hoboken Brownstone can get financial help from the state.
The entrance to the food court at the Voorhees Town Center, which has been closed for nearly two years after a fire.
Vallone said his company is applying for a $90 million tax credit for development projects and expects to hear in the coming months whether it is approved. If not, he said, “we walk.”
Vallone made similar statements in a Philadelphia Business Journal report earlier this week.
Voorhees Township Mayor Michael Mignogna said he supports “the thoughtful redevelopment of the former Echelon Mall site” as proposed by Hoboken Brownstone.
“Throughout the process, the township has worked collaboratively with Hoboken Brownstone and Namdar in their private transaction to advocate for the rejuvenation of Town Center, specifically a strong business and retail presence that will restore the site as the center of Voorhees tradition and community,” Mignogna said in a statement.
He noted that a state tax credit would not affect the developer’s local tax responsibilities.
The uncertainty represents the latest hurdle in the long quest to revive the sprawling complex off Somerdale Road. Over the years, the 400-acre property, one of the Philadelphia region’s many lifeless malls, has been redeveloped in fits and starts under multiple owners.
Recently, transformations have begun at nearby malls, including Moorestown and Burlington Center, as the old Echelon Mall languishes.
What $250 million could do for dead Voorhees mall
The Voorhees Township Town Hall would not be included in a potential sale of the closed mall building.
In an attempt to turn the mall around, it was partially demolished, and a Main Street-style mixed-use development was built on part of the property in 2008. After this makeover, which cost an estimated $150 million, the complex was rebranded as the Voorhees Town Center.
A sign on the door of the Voorhees Town Center, which has been closed for nearly two years due to fire damage.
Hoboken Brownstone plans to buy the mall building from Namdar in a pending sale, dependent on the tax break, Vallone said. He declined to disclose how much he would pay for the property, and Namdar executives could not be reached.
The sale would not include the Voorhees Town Hall, which occupies 22,000 square feet of the mall and cost the township $5.5 million.
Nor would it include the property’s existing mixed-use section, Boulevard Shoppes, which had been home to an Iron Hill Brewery until the company filed for bankruptcy and closed all locations this fall. (Township administrator Stephen Steglik said Voorhees hasn’t heard anything from Namdar about what’s next for the Iron Hill space.)
Voorhees Township officials are in the dark about the future of the closed Iron Hill Brewery.
If the sale goes through, Vallone said, construction could begin in early 2027.
The company plans to build more than 200 market-rate townhouses; more than 100 units of affordable housing, including for-sale townhouses and rental apartments; and a parking garage with at least 1,300 spaces.
As for the retail space inside the mall, “we’re going to invest a lot of money because there has been very little maintenance done on that thing for the last 20 years,” Vallone said. The mall building will not be torn down, he said, and may look largely the same from the outside.
Why this developer invests in dead New Jersey malls
The former Echelon Mail, as seen through a window in October 2024, after a fire damaged the building. The mall has not reopened since.
In Voorhees, Hoboken Brownstone’s plan differs from its other major mall redevelopment in New Jersey.
After buying Liberty Village from Namdar, Vallone said he reached back out to the real estate company to inquire about other mall properties for sale. That’s how he became interested in the Voorhees Town Center.
Vallone said he believes dead and dying malls can make good investments.
“Here we have a substantial amount of infrastructure that is feeding the mall,” including plumbing and electric, Vallone said. “That de-risks the project quite a bit.”
And he said he thinks customers will come to malls-turned-town-centers if they are developed thoughtfully.
After all, retailers like Amazon can’t deliver everything same-day, Vallone said, and shopping online doesn’t offer the same experience as browsing at a store.
In-person entertainment, fine dining, and even grocery shopping are also hard to replicate at home, he said: “Certain things, you have to go somewhere to do.”
Reclectic, URBN’s discountstore, is moving from one Philly-area mall to another.
The 40,000-square-foot site which opened in 2023 at the Franklin Mall (still widely known to locals by former name Franklin Mills) will relocate to a larger space in Willow Grove Park Mall next month, into the first floor of the former Sears store.
The movecomes as Reclectic’s Franklin Mall lease nears its end and as the store has seen an “overwhelming increase in demand,” said Kevin Dorfmeyer, executive director of strategy, corporate development and Reclectic at URBN.
Reclectic sells items typically 50% to 60% off the ticket price and includes new, slightly damaged inventory, or items that have cycled through URBN’s clothing rental service, Nuuly. The store sells shoes, clothing, home furnishings, and accessories.
The Franklin Mall location will close on Feb. 21, and the new site at Willow Grove Park Mall will open on Feb. 27.
The Reclectic store at the Franklin Mall opened in 2023.
The company is also looking to expand locations this year, said Dorfmeyer, who described the Franklin Mall store as “extremely successful.”
To date, URBN has opened Reclectic locations in North Carolina, Illinois, Texas, New York, and Arizona.
“We’re actively working on expansion into new metro regions across the U.S.,” Dorfmeyer said. “It’s too early to tell now where we’re headed, but, [we’re] looking to expand further.”
Shoppers are traveling upwards of 30 to 60 miles to visit Reclectic stores, Dorfmeyer said.
“Our customer loves the thrill of the hunt,” he said. “They’re coming to us to discover new brands, to experiment and play and, quite honestly, just to uncover the possibility with a new type of inventory that we offer in Reclectic.”
URBN, which was founded in Philadelphia, is the parent company of Anthropologie, Free People, and Urban Outfitters. The business launched Nuuly, a clothing rental subscription, in 2019.
An assortment of colorful couches and other furniture for sale at Reclectic in the Franklin Mall in August 2023.
The layoffs are planned forthe end of April, according to a Thursday WARN Act filing with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. They include the employees of all six Philly-area Amazon Fresh locations — 205 at the Northern Liberties store, 189 in Broomall, 161 in Bensalem, 157 in Langhorne, 144 in Warrington, and 127 in Willow Grove, according to the filing.
By the end of April, Amazon also plans tolay off nearly 900 New Jersey employees, the vast majority of whom work in northern counties where there are Amazon Fresh stores, according to a WARN Act filing with New Jersey Department of Labor & Workforce Development.
The day after announcing the Amazon Fresh closures, Amazon said 16,000 employees companywide would be losing their jobs as part of a broader reorganization.
“We’ve been working to strengthen our organization by reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy,” Amazon said in a statement announcing the layoffs.
The company said most U.S. employees will have 90 days to look for a new role internally. After that, those leaving the company will receive severance pay, “outplacement services,” and health insurance benefits, as applicable, according to Amazon.
With its move to shutter the Fresh stores, Amazon has said it will “double down” on online grocery delivery and expand its Whole Foods footprint. Whole Foods, which Amazon bought in 2017, has more than a dozen locations in the Philadelphia area.
“Amazon Whole Foods, a trillion dollar entity, treats us like robots to be exploited and squeezed for maximum profits,” Jasmine Jones, a Philadelphia Whole Foods worker and member of Whole Foods Workers United, said Tuesday in a statement that noted the company’s Whole Foods expansion plans. “They are making billions of dollars off of our labor and we deserve better pay and benefits.”
Amazon will be closing all its physical Amazon Fresh stores, including six in the Philadelphia region, as it expands its Whole Foods footprint and grocery delivery services.
“While we’ve seen encouraging signals in our Amazon-branded physical grocery stores, we haven’t yet created a truly distinctive customer experience with the right economic model needed for large-scale expansion,” the company said.
People shop inside the Amazon Fresh in Warrington in August 2021. The store and all other Amazon-branded grocers are closing.
The statement did not specify which Amazon Fresh stores would become Whole Foods, and company spokespeople did not answer questions about whether any Philadelphia-area locations would be converted.
Amazon Fresh has stores in Broomall, Bensalem, Langhorne, Northern Liberties, Warrington, and Willow Grove. The Northern Liberties location on Sixth and Spring Garden Streets opened this summer after years of construction.
Two more potential Amazon Fresh stores seemed to be in the works in Havertown and Northeast Philadelphia as of the summer, according to PhillyVoice.
Customers use the Amazon Dash Cart at the Amazon Fresh grocery store in Warrington in 2021.
As the company winds down its Amazon-branded physical stores, it says it will “double down” on online grocery delivery, including by expanding its same-day services to more communities.
Whole Foods has 550 locations nationwide, including more than a dozen in the Philadelphia area. Amazon spokespeople did not answer questions about whether more Whole Foods stores were in the works in the Philly region.
Amazon also expects to open at least five more smaller-format Whole Foods Market Daily Shop stores by the end of the year. The company said that decision was based on “strong performance” at the five existing shops in the New York City area and Arlington, Va.
The Center City Whole Foods Market as pictured in February 2025.
The online retailer said it plans to continue to experiment with new ways of shopping at its physical stores.
In its statement, Amazon gave a shout-out to one such test in the Philadelphia area: “The store within a store” experience at the Whole Foods in Plymouth Meeting.
Since November, customers at that store have been able to browse the physical aisles of Whole Foods, while digitally ordering unique products from Amazon and Whole Foods. The orders are then packaged in minutes in an automated micro-fulfillment center within the grocer’s back-of-house area.
Boutique gym Club Studio Fitness is expanding to the Philadelphia area with new locations in Cherry Hill and Wynnewood.
Club Studio is set to take over 30,240 square feet at Cherry Hlil’s Ellisburg Shopping Center in the former BuyBuy Baby storefront. The gym is expected to open in spring 2027.
The Cherry Hill gym will be Club Studio’s second New Jersey gym. The California-based chain opened its first Garden State location in Edgewater in May.
A rendering of the Club Studio Fitness gym slated to open in the Ellisburg Shopping Center in Cherry Hill, N.J., in spring 2027.
The high-end gym chain is also set to open on the Main Line late this year. Club Studio will take over a 50,000-square-foot space in the Wynnewood Shopping Center, a space formerly home to Bed Bath & Beyond. The Wynnewood gym is expected to open toward the end of 2026.
Both shopping centers are owned by Federal Realty Investment Trust, a Maryland-based real estate trust with a large Philadelphia-area footprint.
The addition of Club Studio is “an exciting new chapter for Wynnewood Shopping Center” that continues “the evolution towards more relevant shopping, dining, and now, wellness” experiences, Jeffrey Fischer, Federal Realty’s vice president of leasing, said in a news release.
The Cherry Hill and Wynnewood gyms will have boutique fitness classes; free weights areas; strength and functional training zones; cardio equipment; juice bars; cryotherapy and red-light therapy; and personal stretch stations.
Club Studio is planning to open another Pennsylvania location in Collegeville. The chain has around a dozen locations across the U.S., with a large presence in California, and has around 20 new gyms in the works, according to its website.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
