Wegmans signs lease at Montgomery Mall

Wegmans Food Markets Inc. has inked a deal with the owner of Montgomery Mall to open a supermarket at a Boscov's location idled during the department-store chain's bankruptcy several years ago, mall officials said Wednesday.

The planned 125,000-square-foot Wegmans, whose construction date was still undetermined, would become only the second supermarket in the region added to a shopping mall where department stores once reigned as conventional anchors. The first was a 65,000-square-foot Whole Foods that opened in January 2010 at Plymouth Meeting Mall.

Montgomery Mall majority owner Simon Property Group Inc. said the North Wales, Montgomery County, Wegmans would replace a 140,000-square-foot Boscov's shut down when the chain went through Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 2008, eliminating several struggling stores before emerging as a new business.

"We're very excited for Wegmans to come to this property," said Les Morris, a corporate spokesman for Indianapolis-based Simon Property. He declined to say whether there had been other bidders or prospective tenants in the running for the vacant Boscov's site.

Wegmans spokeswoman Jo Natale said the Rochester, N.Y.-based supermarket chain had not set a timetable for when its newest Philadelphia-area store would open.

She said 2012 was out of the question, given that the company, which opens only three stores a year, had already filled its slate with projects. Beyond that, Natale declined to speculate.

"We have literally just signed the lease," she said. "We now have to work on fitting this into our schedule and then also on the final design plans."

Wegmans plans to demolish the Boscov's building, previously a Strawbridge's, and build its store from scratch, unattached to the rest of the mall along Route 309.

The Montgomery Mall location is the only new Wegmans planned for the region, apart from a King of Prussia store slated to open in April at North Gulph and Warner Roads, Natale said.

"We're very deliberate, very picky about the sites we choose," she said, "and we're quite excited about this site and excited to be expanding our presence in the Greater Philadelphia area, which has been a very good region for us."

Talks to acquire a ground lease at Montgomery Mall began less than two years ago, Natale said. It will be Wegmans' eighth market in the region, a push that began with a store in Downingtown in 2003 and followed with openings in Warrington (2006), Cherry Hill (2006), Mount Laurel (2006), Collegeville (2009), Malvern (2010), and King of Prussia (2012.)

Natale said Montgomery Mall was appealing because the property is of a size that will allow for ample construction and parking, is close enough to a dense market of customers, is in an area of population growth, and is reasonably accessible to drivers from beyond the immediate vicinity.

"We draw from even 25 or 50 miles away for shoppers who want to come to Wegmans once a month, once every other week," Natale said, "so we need to have sites that are easy to find and easy to get to."

In addition, she said, "we're looking for areas where a lot of people live, because we have to hire 600 people to work in our stores. And we need a lot of people to shop in a store that size."

The North Wales Wegmans marks the first area supermarket at a mall owned by Simon, a publicly traded commercial real estate company, with ownership stakes in King of Prussia Mall, Oxford Valley Mall, Franklin Mills Mall, and Philadelphia Premium Outlets. Montgomery Mall, built in 1977, was acquired by Simon in 2003.

Simon recently added Whole Foods supermarkets to shopping centers in Indiana and California as the concept has caught on, Morris said.