Wal-Mart Sets First NJ Supercenter

TURNERSVILLE, NJ-The Washington Township Planning Board has approved Wal-Mart’s proposal to expand its existing store by 85,000 sf, a move that will enable the retail giant to convert its local unit into the Supercenter format, which includes a supermarket married to the traditional discount department store. Construction is expected to begin later this year, pending permits, and the Supercenter would be completed about one year after work begins.

While the news might not seem particularly earth-shattering, it is a major step in Wal-Mart’s growth in the Garden State. While some 1,750 of the company’s 3,200 stores nationally are in the so-called Supercenter format, the pending expansion marks the initial such unit in New Jersey, called by many the nation’s most competitive and highest-priced retail market.

As far as why it has taken so long for the Bentonville, AR-based company to bring its Supercenter format to New Jersey, “sites and space are at a premium, and there just aren’t many locations available,” according to one retail industry observer. “Wal-Mart has been waiting for the chance to bring in a cluster of the Supercenter stores. They would probably need at least 10 locations to make it possible from a logistical sense, because you don’t truck in frozen foods and other food products for just one store.”