Cherry Hill Whole Foods Opening Pushed Back

Whole Foods fans, plan on waiting a few more months before you can grab that bunch of organic kale in Cherry Hill.

Construction delays have pushed back the estimated opening for the Ellisburg store, according to officials from Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRIT), the company that manages the shopping center.

Now, instead of an early-2014 opening, as mentioned previously, Whole Foods is most likely going to open some time in the second quarter of next year, with May mentioned as a possible target by David Joss, FRIT’s development manager. 

FRIT crews have to do major exterior work for an entirely new façade, involving essentially a complete teardown of the old Geunardi’s facing, which will be replaced with a swath of glass and composite work.

“Being the main anchor, we want that to be the focus of the entire center,” Joss told Cherry Hill’s planning board in May.

That work was still awaiting permitting as of mid-June, but could start at any point, Joss said. Those delays mean it’ll be later before FRIT can deliver the building to Whole Foods’ construction crews for interior work on the 47,000-square-foot space, though.

That could happen around Oct. 1, Joss said, and at the same time, the rest of the center would begin to get a facelift to match the new-look Whole Foods façade.

Pinning down an exact date for Whole Foods’ opening is difficult before that interior work actually begins, company officials said.

“Until they tender it to us, it’s kind of abstract,” said Mark Hughes, Whole Foods’ construction coordinator for the Mid-Atlantic region.

It’ll be the 13th store in New Jersey for the Texas-based grocer, which operates 340 stores in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, and will be slightly larger than the Marlton location on Route 73.

Cherry Hill’s store will also feature an outdoor seating area and will have electric car charging stations in the parking lot, and, like other locations, will most likely run a farmers market in a portion of the parking lot once a week during the spring, summer and early fall, Hughes said.