Vacant Acme in Moorestown gets a new tenant

A vacant Acme Market that for six years has stood as a ghostly presence in downtown Moorestown has acquired a tenant and is getting a makeover.

Moorestown Friends School, which acquired the site in 2006 with plans to convert it to classrooms, announced this week that a Mount Laurel architecture firm had leased the 15,000-square-foot space for its offices and is renovating its interior and brick exterior.

"This is a concluding chapter to this period in school and town history," said the school's director of development, Mike Schlotterbeck.

The school's board of trustees had "entertained offers from many suitors - commercial and retail," before selecting InterArch, said Schlotterbeck, who called the firm and its plans a "good fit for Moorestown."

D. Scott Carew, township manager, said Thursday that he was excited that the building at 123 Chester Ave., across from a leafy cemetery, "will once again become an active part of our Main Street area."

A woman who answered the phone at InterArch said the firm was "not interested" in discussing the move.

Its website describes the firm as specializing in interior design and space planning, but does not say how many people it employs.

Surrounded by an asphalt parking lot, the former supermarket sits about 100 yards from the private school's campus, which would have required students to cross busy Main Street to reach it.

After spending a year planning its conversion, Friends acquired a newly available property directly adjacent to the campus and abandoned plans to modify the Acme.

In April, it opened Hartman Hall, which houses eight mathematics classrooms and a choral music suite, on the new site.

The building is named after Neil Hartman, who taught mathematics at Friends for 33 years, coached boys' tennis, and served on the board of trustees.