Raritan Stop And Shop To Close Thursday

RARITAN, NJ — Stop & Shop's Raritan location off Route 206 and Orlando Drive last days are numbered. The store is officially closing on Thursday.

Many of the store shelves are already empty and barren as the store completes its last week open.

The company announced it was closing the location in September.

"After a thorough review of the operating performance of our stores, we made a business decision not to renew our lease at our Raritan store location," Cindy Carrasquilla, spokeswoman for Stop & Shop previously told Patch.

All associates were offered positions in nearby stores.

Raritan Mayor Charles McMullin said the cause of closure is due in large part to the property owner's lack of attention to the location.

"The previous owner was a real slug in terms of maintenance of the facility," McMullin told Patch. "He drove it into the ground."

The previous owner defaulted on the property about a year ago before RAIT Financial Trust, who held the mortgage, took over the property in the spring of this year. The borough signed an agreement with RAIT that included an extensive list of repairs the company had to do by Aug. 31 to get the property back in order.

RAIT failed to meet the deadline and the borough took them to court in September where a judge gave them 30 days to make repairs on the property.

McMullin said Monday that the repairs have been completed by RAIT, which include repairing holes in the parking lot, repairing broken sidewalks and fencing and more.

Now McMullin said the town is looking to find a new anchor store to replace Stop & Shop. McMullin had reached out to Trader Joe's to see if they would be interested in taking over the grocery store's location. But Trader Joe's did not respond to McMullin.

Trader Joe's also did not immediately respond to Patch.

McMullin feels a "niche" anchor store such as a Trader Joe's would be the best fit for the location to be able to compete with neighboring grocery stores such as Wegmans in Bridgewater, Shoprite in Somerville and the soon-to-open Whole Foods in Bridgewater.

"The smaller footprint store is more attractive for having a niche store and it makes a whole lot of sense in terms of the geography and transportation here," McMullin said. "If we find the right anchor store the others will fill up rather handily in my opinion."

McMullin is urging interested prospective tenants to react to RAIT for information on leasing the property.

(Image via Google Maps)

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