Residents living in downtown Princeton Junction may be without a supermarket for a while. The Acme supermarket on Princeton-Hightstown Road is expected to be closed by mid-May.##M:[more]##
Acme employees have confirmed to the News that the store will be closing in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, rumors continue to circulate that Kings — a high-end supermarket with locations in North Jersey — may be taking its place.
But the commercial developer who has an option to purchase the property, Richard Dreher, of the Princeton-based Dreher Group, isn’t talking. Dreher has refused comment to the News about the transaction in the past, and did not return phone calls this week. It is unknown at this point whether Dreher has actually purchased the property, which, according to tax records, is assessed at $9.57 million. Township tax assessor Steve Benner said that there has been no change of ownership listed in the township’s tax roll, and that no paperwork regarding any changes have come to him.
Windsor Plaza — the shopping center’s proper name — was constructed by the Courtney family, with whom Dreher has been working out a deal. Family member Doug McDowell, speaking from his San Francisco home, this week told the News he could not comment because “it’s all sensitive information right now.”
A store manager referred requests for information on the store closing to Acme Markets’ corporate spokeswoman Gail Street, who did not return a phone call. A message left for spokeswoman Taryn Duckett was also not returned.
Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh said when he talked to the current owners of the Acme three years ago, they told him the contract with Acme ends this May, and that is why the Acme will probably move out. “I can’t speak for them,” he said.
Hsueh says he does not believe the shopping center owners have finalized a deal with Dreher yet because, “if they did, they have to file papers with the township,” and no one at the township has mentioned anything to him about it.
Carlo Pugliese, owner of Aljon’s pizzeria in the shopping center had also heard that the lease for the Acme was up in May, but denied rumors that rents for the other stores in the shopping center were doubled.
West Windsor Council President Charles Morgan, who spoke with Dreher this week, said that concepts in the rumors making their way around town — that Kings was going to be coming into the shopping center, and that renovations and upgrades were planned over the summer for the parking lot and signage — are all goals held by the developer.
“The rumors are correct directionally, but not completely reliable because stuff happens, and all of the paperwork’s not been finished, and he’s dealing with multiple options,” said Morgan. “The problem is he’s right in the middle of working through the details, and rumors are popping off possibilities, and not realities.”
Despite this, Morgan finds Dreher’s possibilities exciting. “His goals and my personal goals are parallel — to put a high-end supermarket in there so that the valuations of the property are improved, and he can attain high quality tenants.”
And “certainly if there’s going to be a supermarket in there, a developer wants something that competes favorable with McCaffrey’s and the other supermarkets in the area.”
Hsueh said his understanding is that when the current owners of the Acme were talking to buyers, they “wanted to have somebody other than Acme” come into the shopping center.
“As long as we can beautify that area, anything is better than what is there today,” says Hsueh. “Whoever wants to renovate that area has to come back to the township planning board.”
Morgan says he is confident that “based on everything I’ve heard, that he’s (Dreher) going to do a renovation of the center that will make it look very good to the community. I am convinced it is impossible to do a tear-down and put the buildings out on Route 571. Where do you put a loading dock for a supermarket? It becomes a very difficult thing for practical purposes.”
A Kings store, says Morgan, would fit the profile of what Dreher is looking for — an upscale tenant that is a high-value property that would attract the community to come and shop — says Morgan. “Anything can happen, and the rumors can turn out not to be true if the contingencies that are not expected to occur do, in fact, occur.”
Coincidentally, many township residents have been calling for the same thing during redevelopment discussions.
Steve Goldin, CEO of InterCap Holdings, which owns 25 acres off Washington Road and has been a proponent of mixed-use redevelopment with housing to support amenities, doesn’t believe another supermarket is coming any time soon.
“It’s no secret to anybody these days that retailers are closing and reducing footprints, so when an opportunity comes up to cleanly get out of a location, any company’s going to look at leases,” he said. “Unfortunately for West Windsor, there was a convergence of a lease expiration and the state of the economy. The Acme decision to close, given this environment,” is indicative that “it’s very unlikely that you’re going to see a new grocery store come in there.”
So what does Goldin think will happen at the site of the former Acme? “I just think it goes dark, and it’s the beginning of a relatively long period of darkness if they’re looking to replace it,” Goldin says. “In that case, I think it adds to the basis for saying that it’s an underutilized location in need of redevelopment.”
The virtue of having a steady flow of traffic on Route 571, from a retail perspective, is attractive, but “if anything, they’re closing stores, and there’s just going to be fewer retails around.”
If Dreher or any other developer does buy the property, Hsueh says he would like to sit down to talk about upgrading or renovating that area.
Currently, the Dreher Group is based on Nassau Street in Princeton, but it also has an office in Dickson City, near Scranton, PA, where it has been involved in various real estate deals. The group’s website states that its clients range from Fortune 100 companies to family-owned businesses and private landowners, and that its experience spans 30 years and hundreds of projects. The site also states that it is a “preferred developer for national and regional retailers including Rite Aid, PNC Bank, and Giant Foods.”
