ShopRite is moving forward with its 2025 plans in Manalapan, Freehold, Manahawkin

Expect to hear more about potential new ShopRite supermarkets in Monmouth and Ocean counties in 2025.

Saker ShopRites, the Holmdel-based owner and operator of 39 supermarkets in Central Jersey and the Jersey Shore, has a store planned for Route 33 in Manalapan.

The goal is to replace an older location in Stafford with a new store on the site of the former Kmart on Route 72 in the Manahawkin Commons shopping center. Saker ShopRites also plans to renovate its Freehold Township store, which was built in 1963.

Here’s where things stand so far.

What’s going on there?These three ShopRite-anchored malls in Ocean County have a new owner

Manalapan

A ShopRite supermarket is proposed for Manalapan Crossing, a village community off Route 33 at Millurst Road. The Planning Board hearing is expected to continue in 2025.

Cardinale Enterprises, the developer of Manalapan Crossing, wants to replace three previously approved retail and restaurant buildings that have not yet been built. The new Manalapan ShopRite Manalapan will be 83,559 square feet, planner Ian M. Borden, president of Professional Design Services in Lakewood, said at a planning board hearing last month.

The project is met with resistance. A group of residents of K. Hovnanian’s Four Seasons at Manalapan Crossing, located behind the proposed supermarket, have hired Red Bank attorney Ronald S. Gasiorowski. Gasiorowski said he had no comment on the plans.

In a previous report, developer Vito Cardinale said Route 33 needs a large supermarket. The Manalapan ShopRite will be located between Saker ShopRites on Route 9 in Freehold Township and Route 130 in East Windsor.

More than just ShopRite:Aldi is increasing competition in the supermarket with this branch opening in Shrewsbury

Freehold Township

Saker ShopRites also has proposed renovating and expanding its 60-year-old Freehold Township store in the South Freehold Shopping Center on Route 9, according to a redevelopment plan approved by township officials earlier this summer.

When complete, the Freehold Township store will be 86,500 square feet, 41% larger than the current 59,182 square foot store. The new store will also be attached to a new ShopRite Liquor Warehouse. A previous plan called for building a new store from the ground up.

The project has been in the works for years.

A spokesman for Saker ShopRites could not be reached for an update on the project. Mayor Anthony J. Ammiano said the project is moving forward.

“The ShopRite Project has focused on redesigning the website and many of the issues with the site’s sophisticated design have been resolved,” Ammiano wrote in an email to What’s Going There.

“We anticipate that work on the redevelopment agreement will be completed in the coming months and that the Planning Board should have an application from Saker ShopRites by the middle of the year.”

Saker ShopRites controls the project’s schedule, he added. “The community has been working with them to try to move the project forward toward commencement,” he said.

The redevelopment will mean big changes for the South Freehold Shopping Center, which is currently mostly empty. It currently consists of ShopRite, which is attached to an L-shaped, 72,729-square-foot shopping center.

Milestone Returns:Sickles Market plans to reopen after bankruptcy; Find back pay plans and gift cards here

Stafford

A Planning Board hearing on a proposal to convert the former Kmart on Route 72 into a new ShopRite will continue into the new year.

Manahawkin LLC’s Saker Properties, which owns Manahawkin Commons, has proposed renovating the former Kmart and part of the adjacent shopping center to make room for a 120,000-square-foot supermarket and about 18,000 square feet of retail space.

In late 2021, Saker ShopRites purchased seven ShopRites stores in Ocean County formerly owned by Perlmart Inc., including the current ShopRite of Manahawkin supermarket at Stafford Square Mall on Route 72, which would move to the former Kmart. If approved, the new proposed ShopRite would be more than 70% larger than the existing 70,000-square-foot grocery store.

Breaking News

Dellupodisabato

ShopRite is moving forward with its 2025 plans in Manalapan, Freehold, Manahawkin

Leave a Reply Cancel reply