Wal-Mart preparing to enter marketplace

The Freehold Marketplace shopping center, which will include a Wal-Mart department store and a Sam’s Club, is changing the face of Route 537, Freehold Township.

Retailer will occupy

new building on

Rt. 537, Freehold Twp. BY MARK ROSMAN

Staff Writer

Right now it’s a facility known simply as Wal-Mart store No. 3236. In the near future, however, the Arkansas retail giant will occupy the Freehold Marketplace on Route 537 at Castronova Way.

Construction began in April and is proceeding at a rapid pace on two buildings at the site — a Wal-Mart and a Sam’s Club. When the project is completed, Sam’s Club will move to the new facility from its present location at the Freehold Raceway Mall.

At the present time, the closest Wal-Mart to Freehold is on Route 9 south in Howell.

The Freehold Township Wal-Mart will comprise 149,490 square feet, plus a garden center totaling 8,633 square feet. Plans for the store that are on file in the township construction department indicate that the Wal-Mart will have an auto service center, pharmacy and optical departments, a snack bar area for customers, employee break rooms and a photo processing facility.

MIGUEL JUAREZ staff

The Sam’s Club building will comprise 155,594 square feet. It is described as a warehouse retail operation that also offers bulk food sales. A small mezzanine area will provide some storage space and will not be accessible to the public.

Freehold Township construction official Thomas Luongo said inspections for the buildings’ footings, foundations, slabs, plumbing and some electrical work have been completed. Construction crews are now working on the interior of the stores.

The township health department will conduct a review of the facilities because food will be sold in both stores.

However, the Wal-Mart will not be a Super Wal-Mart, at least at the time that the shopping center opens. A Super Wal-Mart is comprised of the department store and a full-service supermarket.

Luongo said there is room at the site for a supermarket if Wal-Mart proposes one in the future.

Several calls to Wal-Mart’s corporate offices seeking information about the project were not returned.

Gerry Norkus, who owns Foodtown supermarkets in Freehold Borough and Freehold Township, said he has concerns about the opening of Wal-Mart.

“The opening will impact everyone,” Norkus said. “Wal-Mart carries lots and lots of food. The pie is just so big and they’ll take a little piece of that pie.”

Norkus grew up in the supermarket business. His father, Francis, opened a Foodtown on Main Street, Freehold, in 1935. He moved the business to Mechanic Street in 1955 and then to Park Avenue (Route 33), where it remains today.

The Freehold Township Foodtown is in the Raintree shopping center on Route 537, less than half-mile from Wal-Mart’s new location.

Norkus said he had concerns when an Acme supermarket opened on Route 9 at Elton-Adelphia Road in Freehold Township and when an Acme opened in the Mount’s Corner shopping center next to Raintree. Despite the competition, he said, “we’re doing fine.”

If Wal-Mart eventually adds a full-service supermarket at the Freehold Marketplace, “clearly this addition ... would be more of a serious impact,” he said.

Norkus said there is a Super Wal-Mart in south New Jersey and a proposed Super Wal-Mart in Toms River.

When asked if he has anything special planned to coincide with the opening of Wal-Mart, Norkus, who recently completed a major addition at the Raintree Foodtown, said he had a couple of things in mind, but that he was not at liberty to discuss those ideas right now.

The opening of Wal-Mart stores in some communities throughout the United States is met with controversy when residents object to the impact of the retail giant on local “mom and pop” operations. To this point, there has been no such public objection to Wal-Mart in the Freehold Township or Freehold Borough.

Jayne Carr is the executive director of the Freehold Center Partnership, which oversees activities in Freehold Borough’s business district.

“I’m not sure that Wal-Mart is our direct competition, just as the Freehold Raceway Mall was not,” Carr said. “We’re more service oriented with small shops and restaurants. But I do feel that the impact on the surrounding community with the amount of traffic will be surprising. Between the hospital, the mall and the new shopping centers, there is so much in one spot. Before the Wal-Mart shopping center has even opened, there is already evidence of increased traffic.”

Large retailers may also feel the impact of new competition when Wal-Mart comes to town.

A recent Associated Press story reported the ongoing competition between Wal-Mart and its chief rival, Target. The story reported that Wal-Mart has recently added trendier clothes and upscale linens in a bid to attract the attention and money of people who might otherwise shop at Target.

The closest Target is on Route 9 south at Symmes Road in Manalapan, about 5 miles north of Freehold Township.

Two calls to Target’s corporate headquarters seeking comment on the arrival of Wal-Mart in the local marketplace were not returned.

The Associated Press story also reported that Wal-Mart has added more consumer electronics, including plasma TVs and digital cameras. These type of items could have an impact on sales at two local electronics retailers — Circuit City on Route 9 north at Pond Road in Freehold Township, and Best Buy on Route 9 south at Craig Road in Manalapan.

Asked if Best Buy is concerned with the pending opening of Wal-Mart a few miles away, Jay Musolf of the Best Buy public relations department at corporate headquarters in Minnesota said the company’s policy is not to comment on competitors.

A message left at the corporate headquarters of Sears, Roebuck and Co. in Illinois was not returned. The Sears store at Freehold Raceway Mall has an auto service department that could experience some impact from the same type of facility at the new Wal-Mart.

Route 537 is certain to feel the impact of additional retail development. Township Committee members Eugene Golub and David Salkin, who were re-elected in November, acknowledged that the presence of the Freehold Marketplace will increase traffic along the already busy county thoroughfare.

“Route 537 is going to be difficult,” Golub said.

But both municipal officials said the money Wal-Mart paid for road improvements will help ease some traffic congestion. That money included $2 million to the county for improvements to Route 537, and $1.2 million to the township, which the municipality may or may not use to eventually build a road that would run from the back of the Freehold Marketplace over the Route 33 bypass and through a now-undeveloped parcel to connect with Route 9 south.

News Transcript staff writer Clare Marie Celano contributed to this story.