Lawrence Township officials were expected to meet with the development manager for the Lidl grocery store chain this week, which will be opening a store at the Lawrence Shopping Center.
The development manager was slated to meet with Construction Official Anthony Cermele to begin the review process in anticipation of applying for construction permits.
The no-frills Lidl grocery store chain signed a lease to open a store in the former Acme location at the Lawrence Shopping Center at 2495 Brunswick Pike earlier this year.
“The residents have been patiently waiting for signs of progress with the Lawrence Shopping Center and, more particularly, with the old Acme location that will be a Lidl,” Municipal Manager Kevin Nerwinski said.
Lidl, which is based in Germany, is in the planning and design phase for the grocery store. It is not known when the store will open in the vacant 39,681 square foot space.
The former Acme space has been empty since August 2018, when the store’s lease expired. Acme Markets decided not to renew the lease because the store had not met the company’s goals.
JJ Operating Inc., which acquired the Lawrence Shopping Center in 2016, had been looking for a grocery store to fill the void that was left when the Acme grocery store shut its doors. The owner closed on the deal to bring Lidl to occupy the space.
Since Acme closed, residents’ choices were to shop at ShopRite in the Mercer Mall in northern Lawrence Township, or at grocery stores in West Windsor, Pennington or Princeton.
Lidl takes a “no-frills” approach to shopping, according to its website. The stores are efficiently laid out and 90% of the products are branded under the chain’s own label.
Products are displayed in boxes on open shelves and not stocked individually on the shelves. Employees replace the boxes when they are empty, instead of restocking individual items.
The store does not provide shopping bags, which helps to keep the overhead costs to a minimum and eliminates unnecessary costs. The cost of shopping bags is not built into the store’s prices, the website said.
Since its beginnings in 1973, the company has expanded and now operates more than 10,500 stores in 29 countries. Lidl established its U.S. headquarters offices in Virginia in 2015.
More than two dozen new stores are slated to open along the East Coast by next spring, company officials said.
The former Acme grocery store site is one of 49 retail spaces at the Lawrence Shopping Center, which is anchored by Staples, the Burlington Coat Factory and Petvalue, according to a brochure and flier posted on JJC Operating Inc.’s website.
The 393,430 square foot shopping center was purchased by JJ Operating Inc. for $16.2 million in December 2016, according to the Lawrence Township Tax Assessor’s Office.
