BRICK: Work on Wawa Upgrade Resumes and Royal Farms Speculation

With the latest rumored Royal Farms opening date looming on the horizon, I was recently pleased to notice that the Lanes Mill/Burnt Tavern/Herborn (Exit 91) Wawa construction site had started moving forward again.

Starting earlier this week, a porta-potty first arrived on the site, and later one and then a second excavator arrived.

Today, there was a small crew of people seen working on things and those of us that have been waiting patiently for this wawa to reopen are hoping that the underground fuel tanks will be installed soon.

For those that are new, this location used to house an older Wawa without gas pumps, and a 2nd business formerly known as the Rice King. The Rice King had been closed for many years as Wawa owned the property and at one point, Wawa stopped all store upgrades pending the demolition and rebuild of the store.

The last day the store was open was late December of 2021 and employees were quick to say the store would be closed for “about a year”.

While new stores in the surrounding community (Jackmartin and Route 88) have recently opened and the lots are always busy, the Ramtown Plaza location has absorbed most of the neighborhood business. In this time the shell across the street went through a very similar teardown and rebuild and has re-opened with a store/market but other than the exit 91 Wawa, the Royal Farms on the corner of Route 88 and Route 70 is probably the most anticipated convenience store in the area.

While there are other Royal Farms stores in the state of New Jersey, most of them are located further south in New Jersey (Pleasantville/Egg Harbor Township) or closer to the Delaware River (Mount Laurel).

The store has been ready to open for more than two years now, and the opening date has been pushed back many times. The last rumored date was September 21st, 2022, which is just a few days away.

In support of the latest rumor, I was pleased to see that the store is again listed on the “Store Locations Coming soon” page and there were once again job listings for the location. Both of these things had disappeared off the Royal Farms official site previously which led to many rumors that Royal Farms had lost faith in the Brick market.

Many rumors have been floated for why the store hasn’t opened yet. Ranging from the fact that it’s the first store in a new region so they need to hire twice as many people as usual to cover all the needed shifts or extra approvals needed from the state of New Jersey for a crosswalk on a side street. While any word from myself at the moment is pure speculation, the number of signs with hiring information, offers of rapid pay, and benefits hints to the former being a definite issue.

Are you excited for the new Royal Farms? Or are you more excited that our Wawa Family may soon be returning to Lanes Mill with their new and improved Super Wawa (that will ultimately also provide close restrooms for those that use the nearby Bernie Cooke Park.